Shadowchasers: Normality
by Krika94
Summary: Not every Shadowchaser group struggles against impossible odds to save the world. Some live relatively peaceful lives policing their districts, interrupted only by the usual troublemakers, strange Duel Spirits, and rampant Mad Science. These are the stories of the Duel Town Shadowchasers.
1. Pilot: Magical Dimension

_Welcome, one and all, to the first real story that I've ever written. As such, it's going to be a bit rough, but my two betas (who deserve a lot of thanks for doing this for me) should help me keep quality high._

_First up, the disclaimers! The plots and characters in this story are mine, unless indicated otherwise. Everything isn't mine in the slightest. The Yu-Gi-Oh franchise belongs to Konami and all the other people who have a piece of the metaphorical pie. The Shadowchasers universe is the brainchild of Cyber Commander, and thus credit goes to him. Shadowchasers as a setting heavily borrows from D&amp;D and the Urban Arcana and Shadow Chasers settings of d20 Modern, so credit to Hasbro there._

_Cards that I have made up or borrowed from others will be listed at the bottom of each chapter, with the creator of the card listed if it was borrowed from someone else. Cards I borrow from the anime will be listed there as well. If I don't list a card used at the bottom, then it's a real-life card, and you can look it up on a wiki somewhere. Turbo Duels will use the Speed World 2 field spell from the second season of 5Ds._

_Duels are written using the TCG rules, so 8000 life points is the order of the day. I will be using whatever banlist is currently in effect for the TCG as of the first chapter of each episode._

_Episode, you ask? Why, let me explain. This story is partially derived from the idea of a police procedural Shadowchasers story, as well as from the idea of a Shadowchasers television show. As a result, the story will be structured into episodes of generally three to five chapters each, each episode having its own self contained plot. Sure, episodes might set up other ones down the line, or introduce Chekhov's Guns that will trigger in later episodes, but you should be able to read each episode without knowledge of the others and still understand what's going on. Or that's the idea, anyway._

_This story doesn't take place at any particular point in the Shadowchasers timeline. It's post-Tournament of Shadows, but past that point its place in the timeline is both undefined, and is going to move forward as episodes are posted and time passes in-universe._

_But enough talk, you're here for the story! Onward!_

**OOOOO**

As an organization, the Shadowchasers are responsible for many accomplishments over the centuries. The most obvious of these is establishing a relatively peaceful status quo among the various Shadowkind that live on Earth, via the writing and enforcement of the Great Treaty. There are Shadowkind who would disagree with this being a positive accomplishment, but everything political has its detractors. KaibaCorp and Industrial Illusions, however, would consider Duel Monsters becoming a widespread and downright necessary part of life in the Shadows a wonderful accomplishment. Generally speaking, all those cards have to come from somewhere, and the vast majority of Shadowkind and Awares do not have the ability to create their own decks. To Seto Kaiba at least, profit is profit. Maximillion Pegasus would have been more likely to appreciate his game reaching a wider audience that could enjoy it.

Another, less well-known accomplishment of the Shadowchasers was the halting of countless nefarious plans by villains too numerous to list. Preventing an apocalyptic rainstorm from flooding the planet, ending an attempt to turn a vast number of Mundanes into Shadowkind, the Pleasureland incident, preventing the rise of Ivan Palethorn, and many more were all halted as a direct result of the actions of Shadowchasers. This isn't something they generally advertise, as the sheer number of these plots is, perhaps, a bit disconcerting to the average person. Needless to say, it's likely that any given Shadowchaser will be involved in at least one major incident with possibly global repercussions in their time as an active member. It would be folly to assume that such events are the only things that Shadowchasers are involved in, however. Most Shadowchasers spend their days dealing with much lower-key problems, with small-time crooks and easily-fixed issues.

And so, we turn to the Shadowchasers team who work in and around the town of Fenderson, Iowa, a place known almost exclusively by its nickname - "Duel Town". In the early 2000s, after the success of the first five Duel Academies, Kaibacorp expanded the program by founding many more across the globe, making the sport of dueling more accessible to those who could not afford to stay at a boarding school. This small town was chosen as the location of the Mid-West Duel Academy, and from there it quickly turned into a boom town focused around the sport of dueling. There are no nefarious schemes with global consequences here, but as in any town where Shadowkind, Awares, Sensitives, and Mundane rub shoulders, crime happens, and there is need for Shadowchasers.

These are their stories.

**OOOOO**

Magic is many things.

Long hours of preparation, the skill to properly channel the energies, the will to enforce your desires on the world, the wonder when you see the changes happen. This list is written with a mind toward true magic of the arcane variety, wielded by mages Shadowkind and Aware, but there is another form of magic to which much of it applies. Stage magic, while nothing more than trickery and misdirection, nevertheless requires preparation and skill in similar amounts, a will to master it, and can provoke equal amounts of wonder even when compared to its more fantastical counterpart.

Why then, do Shadowkind and Aware to whom the fantastic is normal have as much interest and attraction in this mundane art? For some it is the skill to change the mundane into the fantastic that attracts them, for others it could just be the entertainment any successful stage magician provides. Whatever the reason, there is little wonder that any gathering of stage magicians would attract Shadowkind and Awares as much it would attract Mundanes. And just such a convention is where we meet the first of the Duel Town Shadowchasers...

**OOOOO**

Society of American Magicians Convention, Minneapolis Convention Center, Minneapolis

The line outside the convention hall was moving at a speed that could be described as somewhere between a trickling stream and a coursing creek, if one were to dive into watery metaphors. One particular member of the line, a woman with dark hair wrapped in a ponytail wearing a loosely-fitted jacket and pants, would be more likely to use descriptions such as "decently fast" and "quickly enough", as well as "slower than I'd like." Fortunately, she'd gotten here early enough that she was already at the front of the line, so her wait wasn't very long compared to some others who had shown up an hour later. The guard finished checking the pass for the young couple ahead of her in line and waved her forward.

"Pass?" He sounded a bit on the bored side. There was only so long you could do this and not have it get excruciatingly repetitive.

The woman grinned. "You already have it."

The guard tilted his head to the side, looking a bit confused. "What do you mean?"

"Only that it's right…" she reach out and snatched at the air next to his ear, hand returning with a piece of paper in it. "...here." She offered it to him with a smile.

The guard relaxed, taking the paper from her and looking it over. "A practitioner I see! Professional or amateur?"

"Professional, but only part-time. I started learning when I was a kid." He nodded to the response.

"Always nice to hear about young people getting into it." He glanced at the Duel Disk that was hanging off of her belt. "Duel much?"

The woman nodded confidently. "I live in Fenderson, Iowa. Pretty much everyone there does."

The guard blinked as recognition spread across his features. "Ah, Duel Town huh?" He received a nod in response. "Well, everything seems to be in order, so welcome to the convention Mrs. Hadrax!" He handed her pass back. "You can pick up your nametag right inside, and that will let you get in without having to wait in line every time you leave."

Nodding, the woman entered the building as the guard called the next person forward, a nervous-looking elf with black hair.

**OOOOO**

"And now, ladies and gentlemen, let me introduce the next act in the evening's exhibition, the illustrious illusionist from Iowa, the lovely Lucy!"

As the announcer stepped back behind the curtains on the right side of the stage, the spotlights moved from him to focus on the figure stepping out from the curtains on the left side of the stage. As they did so, the dark-haired woman stepped into the light with a bow. She was now wearing an outfit traditionally reminiscent of a stage magician, dark pants with a white shirt, dark red waistcoat, and a black tailcoat extending down to her knees. Completing the look was a ruby red bowtie, a silk tophat perched on of her head, and a pair of red silk gloves on her hands. Her hair had been let down, falling just below her shoulders. She smiled at the audience, taking another bow. Her grey eyes seemed to sparkle with excitement, although a few particular members of the audience might say that they flickered more than anything else. Those same members would also be the only ones who would notice the dark mark that ran across her right cheek, hardly noticeable unless you were looking for it.

Lucy straightened and smiled at the audience, who quickly quieted their applause. "Thank you for your applause. I am honored to be performing here today. Of course, you haven't come to here me talk about me being here, so let's get started."

She snapped her fingers, summoning a small flame that seemed to hover over the open palm of her other hand. "But every magician needs a wand to do magic, so if you'll let me take a moment to retrieve it…" She swiped her hand through the flame, seeming to pull it into a stream about a foot long, before grabbing it and waving back. As she did so, the flames seemed to disappear into a red and black rod. "Ah, here it is." A twirl of the rod left a quick swirl of flame that quickly disappeared.

Amidst a slight patter of applause, she bowed and swept the top-hat off her head. "Let's start with something simple first. Maybe an old classic?" A tap of the hat with her wand sent a burst of flame out of its mouth, into which she reached and pulled a stuffed black rabbit, the flames extinguishing as she did so. She reacted with exaggerated surprise, looking it over. "Well, it was white when I put it in there...I guess it got a little singed." The audience laughed a little, and she tossed the bunny to a small girl she saw in the second row. "Take care of him, would you?" The little girl squealed a little with excitement, hugging the bunny tightly.

She moved on to the next trick in her routine, her smile genuine this time.

**OOOOO**

A little more than half an hour later, Lucy pushed open the door to the backstage, exiting out to the convention floor proper. She was wearing her regular clothing again, her performance clothes and tools having been packed to be sent back to Fenderson. They wouldn't actually be sent back until the convention ended, since she might end up needing them again, but she didn't think that she'd have to. Taking part in the Half-Hour Magic Marathon was a tradition of hers since she'd started doing professional shows, and the chance to perform before a wider audience than the traditional Academy crowd she entertained was always nice.

The inevitable announcer introduction was the only real downside to it. It was part of the show, and she could deal with it, but inevitably a female stage magician was a touch of an oddity - most stage magicians were male, with females often in the role of assistant and eye candy. She didn't precisely have an issue with that, she knew she was considered pretty, but she did wish that "Lovely" wasn't used so often to alliterate with her name and draw attention to her looks first, rather than her skills.

She draped the name tag proclaiming her to be "Lucy Hadrax" around her neck and and looked around. The convention was in full swing, a full crowd moving amidst the various stalls peddling wares, small shows, and the occasional fortune-teller who had managed to get in. She slipped into the flow of the crowd, pulling out a schedule as she did and looking it over, muttering to herself as she did.

"...that doesn't end until three, so I'll have to leave during the Q-and-A session at the end…" She looked over to the next day's schedule and winced at what she saw. "They're at the same time. Damn."

She had neglected to get a convention schedule ahead of time, and now one of the sets of tickets she'd gotten was going to go wasted. Issues like that weren't uncommon on the convention scene, though they seemed to crop up more in the ones Carter went to than this one, though that was probably due to how popular they were compared to this one. Speaking of which, she wanted to pick up some trick puzzles for him, and she didn't have anything that she needed to go to for another couple of hours, so now was as good a time as any to deal with picking things up for the rest of the team.

Reaching a corner of the convention hall alleys one of the blocks that the convention hall was set up into, she turned left, heading toward the half of the hall that was dominated by the sales booths. Or, she would have if she hadn't slammed into someone moving at a half-run the instant she turned the corner.

Her reflexes kicked in, and she took a half-step back, steadying herself by grabbing the nearest table. Unfortunately, the other person didn't appear to have the luxury, as the impact knocked them off balance, tripping over their feet and sprawling onto the floor next to her. Ignoring the dirty look the proprietor of the table she had grabbed gave her for jostling his booth, she bent down to check on the other person.

"Are you OK?"

With a groan, he (for he was male) began clambering to his feet, taking her offered hand to pull himself up. When he made vertical, he began to frantically dust himself off and check his outfit, muttering to himself as he did so. This gave Lucy her first good look at him.

As she had previously noted, he was young man with very light, almost white blonde hair. He was wearing a stereotypical magician's outfit similar to the one she had been wearing not that long ago, with a couple differences. Whereas her outfit was white and black accented with red, his was pure black and white, looking a bit like a penguin suit. It was also visibly lower quality, looking almost like it was something he had rented for the day than something that was actually fitted to him (as hers was). The most impressive thing that she noticed was the fact that his tophat was still somehow perched on top of his head, even after the fall.

Apparently satisfied that he had neither dirtied the outfit particularly or ripped it, he nervously looked up at her. "Sorry, sorry, sorry! I was trying to get to the hall so I can find out when my slot in the Amateur contest is, and I was hurrying because I want as much time as possible before I find out and I wasn't looking where I was going and I'm sorry for running into you…" he trailed off, looking apologetic and awkward.

Lucy gave an internal sigh. An obviously rented or borrowed suit, signing up for the Amateur Magician contest, and being incredibly high-strung all made it extremely clear that he was both very new at this and very nervous. She offered a hand to him. "It wasn't your fault, I wasn't looking when I was going around the corner."

He shook her hand awkwardly. "Nonono, I was moving way too fast and wasn't paying attention to anyone else and I probably shoved a bunch of people out of my way and probably made them mad at me with how clumsy I can be and aaaaggghh!" He glanced nervously at a watch on his hand.

"If you don't calm down and take things easy, it's only going to get worse."

He shook his head at her offered advice. "I need to get there and I need to prepare otherwise I'm going to mess up and and then everybody will laugh at me and I'll never be able to show my face in here again and when my friends hear that I wasn't even able to complete a routine properly they'll laugh at me-" He was interrupted by Lucy grabbing his shoulders and glaring right into his eyes with the full force of her gaze. Admittedly, it wasn't all that much more forceful for her than an ordinary human could accomplish, but sometimes the tiny suggestion of hellfire flickering in her eyes helped.

"Calm down. Stop panicking, you'll only make things worse" she ordered in the best impression she could do of Mira's teacher-voice. He jerked a little, derailed slightly.

"No, I need to get there, I need to get stuff worked out-"

"Calm. Down." She gave him a shake, glare sharpening. He opened his mouth, and then wordlessly closed in a moment later, looking down awkwardly, cheeks a bit flushed.

"Sorry. I have really bad nerves."

Lucy let go and took a step back, leaning against the nearest booth. "Clearly true."

He nodded in response. A moment passed, before he seemed to remember something with a jerk and cautiously offered her his hand, which she took and shook. "Oh, uh, right. I'm Mark."

"Lucy."

Another silence fell with all the subtlety of a collapsing felt curtain.

Mark broke the silence a minute later. "So, uh...you...do magic?"

She nodded, and with a flick of her hand produced a small business card,. "I'm only a part-time performer."

He read the card, and looked back up at her, eyes wide. "Really? That's so cool! I want to be a professional too." His features drooped as he went from excited to sad. "But I'm still only learning, and not very well at that…"

"Well, if you're panicking and visibly being unsure of yourself, then you'll definitely do worse."

He nodded. "Yeah….but how do you do it? Every time I see someone putting on a show they always seem so confident, and I'm not sure if I could ever be that confident in my ability…"

Lucy shrugged. "To some degree they're faking it. Magic is as much an act as anything else. Act confident, and people will think you are."

Mark tilted his head to the side, looking a bit confused. "Is it..really that simple? Just fake it?"

She nodded. "To some degree. It's as much about perception as anything else. And if you fake it long enough, eventually it translates into real confidence."

He pursed his lips. "Oh. I'll see what I can do about that, I suppose. I might be able to fake it, but often I'm just too nervous and wound up…" He chuckled nervously. "As you've seen."

"Which is where relaxing comes into play. I always make sure I do something fun and relaxing before I do a show."

"So you can work out the nerves and forget about being worried and wound up?" She nodded. "I...I think I know what you mean, yeah."

"So, what do you like to do to relax?" She enquired.

"Well, uh...dueling." He vaguely gestured at the disk at her side. "I guess you duel as well?"

She nodded and after a moment's gestured toward the doors to the outside of the convention hall. "How about we have a match? You have almost three hours until the contest starts, and this will help you relax and do better."

He considered this for a moment, and then nodded vigorously. "Sure! I'd be happy to!"

Lucy grinned at him, a grin that was half happy to be doing something she liked and half happy to have an opponent. "Let's find the space then." She stood up to leave, once again ignoring the angry glare of the stall's proprietor.

**OOOOO**

A short time later, both of them were standing in a small garden outside the convention hall, about ten meters apart. Lucy's dark red disk was strapped to her arm, while Mark had produced a plain grey one from his costume. With synchronized motions, they both slipped their Duel Gazers on and activated their disks, the trays folding out in a shimmer of Momentum-powered energy as they each drew five cards.

"Duel!" (Lucy LP: 8000 - Mark LP: 8000)

Mark grinned. "I was the challenged, so I guess I'll take the first turn?" Receiving a nod from his opponent, he looked at the cards in his hand, before smiling. "Let's start the show, then! I summon Performapal Friendonkey!" He slapped a card onto his disk, and in a burst of energy appeared a donkey wearing a very small top-hat and bowtie with a large box emblazoned with a star strapped to its side. (Performapal Friendonkey ATK: 1600)

"But this act's not ready yet, because his effect activates! When he's Normal Summoned, he brings out another Performapal to join in on the action!" The box at the monster's side opened and out of it sprang a very strange looking monster that landed on Friendonkey's back, posing. It was a bit like a grasshopper with a very pointy nose, except that was wearing a jacket and bowtie, and had a bow attached to its head. To complete the odd image, a much smaller grasshopper-like creature, also wearing a jacket and bowtie with a tophat similar to the one on Friendonkey hopped up to pose on its nose.

"And Performapal Bowhopper will do the job!" (Performapal Bowhopper ATK: 1500)

Lucy looked at the rather showy monsters curiously. "Not the strongest monster out there."

Mark smiled. "Bowhopper has an effect as well. I activate Bowhopper's first effect, which lets me Tribute a Performapal monster I control to inflict one hundred points of damage to you for each level it had!"

Friendonkey collapsed into a shower of sparkles, which coalesced into an arrow nocked in Bowhopper's bow. The little monster strained to pull the bow all the way back, before sending it flying. The arrow struck Lucy, who ignored the tiny damage. (Lucy LP: 8000 - 7700).

"And the its second effect lets me Tribute another Performapal monster, like itself, to return one from the Graveyard to my hand." The strange grasshopper dissolved into energy, and turned into a card which flew into Mark's hand. "And Friendonkey is the only target I have."

He placed two cards onto his Disk, and two Set cards shimmered into view in front of him. "Turn end."

Lucy nodded, and drew. "My turn."

He'd left his field wide-open, which likely meant that one of those two face-downs was meant to deal with direct attacks, and the other was a bluff, or at least for something else. She considered, and then selected two cards from her hand.

"First I'll summon Dawn Knight from my hand…" As she played the card, a red-haired warrior with a red cloak worn over its armor appeared in a glimmer of light. "...and then use Lightray Grepher's effect to Special Summon it from my hand by discarding a level 5 or higher Light-attribute monster." Another warrior appeared in a much brighter glimmer of light, this one musclebound in blue and silver armor, with a much larger sword in its hand compared to the first one's fairly small blade. (Dawn Knight ATK: 1400)(Lightray Grepher ATK: 1700)

"Dawn Knight attacks you directly." The first warrior unsheathed his sword and stepped forward, swinging it at Mark, who shook his head with a small grin.

"Continuous Trap activate! Performapal Pinch Helper, as its name suggests, activates when I'm in the pinch of being attacked directly, and lets me get out of it by negating the attack and summoning a Performapal monster from my deck!" Dawn Knight stepped back as light spilled out of the card, forming a rhinoceros with a tophat and bowtie, with five circles, each emblazoned with what appeared to be three commas in a circle attached to a ring that projected up from its back. (Performapal Thunderhino DEF: 1800)

Lucy looked the monster over, then turned a questioning gaze to Mark. "Do all your monsters have a tophat and bowtie?"

He nodded with a grin. "They do! Nothing but the most fashionable for performers, after all." The irony of his rented or borrowed attire as contrasted with that statement went either ignored or unnoticed by him.

"And that?" She asked, pointing at the large contraption that had appeared behind him. It was mostly empty, but she could see what appeared to be several fireworks slotted into it.

"My other Continuous Trap, Grand Entrance. I chained it to the activation of Pinch Helper, and as long as it's on the field, it gains an Entrance Counter whenever I summon a Performapal monster!"

Lucy nodded thoughtfully, looking from the field to her hand. "Turn end."

Mark pulled a card from the top of his deck, adding it to his hand. "Once again, I summon Friendonkey from my hand." The oddly-attired donkey appeared again with a bray. "Only this time he's coming with a friend named Performapal Sword Fish!"

From out of the box flew a….blue-colored fish in the shape of a sword, inexplicable bow-tie and tophat included. (Performapal Friendonkey ATK: 1600)(Performapal Sword Fish ATK: 600)

"And when it's summoned, Sword Fish reduces the Attack and Defense of all monsters you control by 600!" With a cry, the fish summoned a dozen copies of itself, all of which were sent flying Lucy's monsters, scratching them and inflicting small wounds to them despite their best attempts to parry the barrage of swords. (Dawn Knight ATK: 1400 - 800)(Lightray Grepher ATK: 1700 - 1100) Behind him, the contraption summoned by Grand Entrance shuddered as more fireworks appeared on it.

"And then I'll activate the Continuous Spell Circus Arena!" As he placed the card on his disk, the immediate surroundings around the two duelists changed, flattening out a slightly sandy ring surrounded by a multi-colored fence. "And while in this arena, Performapal monsters gain 100 attack points for each level of the monster they battle!"

Lucy looked around at the change in surroundings. "Interesting. Weak monsters who survive by manipulating attack points."

Mark nodded. "And now they'll be strong enough to take out your monsters! Sword Fish, destroy Dawn Knight!" The blue blade-fish shook for a moment, its Attack rising to 1000 as more copies of it appeared and fired at the weaker warrior, impaling it before they shattered. (Lucy LP: 7700 - 7500)

Lucy slipped it into the Graveyard impassively, along with another card that popped out of her deck. "When Dawn Knight is sent from the field to the Grave, I can send a Light-attribute monster from my deck to the Grave."

Mark nodded. "And unless it's something that can negate attacks, your other monster is going down as well!" Friendonkey brayed and trotted over to Grepher, growing as its Attack grew to 2000. The Warrior looked nervously at it, only to be taken off-guard by a quick buck from its hind legs, sending him flying backwards to hit the ground and shatter. (Lucy LP: 7500 - 6600) As it did so, the shattered fragments suddenly coalesced into two small bundles of light, who resolved themselves into a gold and silver frog with blue eyes and a silver-furred Kuriboh with gold wings and blue eyes.

"I can summon both Lightray Kuriboh and Lightray Amphibian from my hand when a Lightray I control is destroyed" she elaborated before Mark could ask. "Lightray Kuriboh's effect also lets me send a Lightray from my deck to the Grave." She caught a card as it flew out of her deck and slotted it into her Graveyard. (Lightray Kuriboh DEF: 200)(Lightray Amphibian DEF: 100)

Mark glanced at the two new monsters and back down to his hand. "I'll end my turn there."

Lucy drew, and smiled at what she had drawn. "I sacrifice my two monsters to summon Lightray Manticore."

The two small monsters turned into brilliant blobs of light and merged, shattering to reveal a golden lion's body covered with white armor, silver and blue wings stretching to either side of it, a blue scorpion's tail curled over its body. (Lightray Manticore ATK: 2800)

Not giving Mark time to comment, Lucy continued. "Two things happen now. Because I summoned it with its effect, Lightray Kuriboh is banished instead of being sent to the Graveyard. And because I used Light-attribute monsters as Tribute for it, Lightray Manticore lets me banish Light-attribute monsters equal to the number that were used as Tribute, and then destroy an equal number of cards on the field. I banish Lightray Grepher and Dawn Knight from my Graveyard."

As she slipped three cards into a small deck holder on her waist, her monster roared and lept forward, shattering Thunderhino with a sting from its tail, before another roar shattered the ring around them, returning their surroundings to the garden.

Mark grinned as he glanced around. "Nice play!" Acknowledging the compliment, Lucy played the last card in her hand.

"By banishing two Light-attribute monsters from my grave, I can summon Soul of Purity and Light. I banish Lightray Madoor and Guardian of Order." This monster appeared quietly as two more cards were ejected from Lucy's disk, a faintly shimmering curtain of light forming the upper half of an angelic figure, with the bottom trailing away. It floated next to the Manticore, giving off an aura of peace that contrasted with the wildness its partner demonstrated. (Soul of Purity and Light ATK: 2000)

Mark blinked, captivated by the monster. "Wow...I guess Guardian of Order and Madoor were put in the grave by Dawn Knight and Grepher, right?"

Lucy, having seen it many times before, simply ignored it. "Correct. Soul of Purity and Light attacks Performapal Friendonkey."

The monster floated over to Friendonkey, embracing it as it glowed brighter. A moment later, the opposing monster faded into twinkling light, and the being returned to Lucy's side of the field. (Mark LP: 8000 - 7600)

Mark blinked at his monster's destruction. "That was...surprisingly peaceful. I guess there's not many ways a monster like that could attack? Overpowering with purity I gu-"

Lucy interrupted his thoughts. "Lightray Manticore, attack his Performapal Sword Fish." Heedless of Mark's surprised yelp, the beast pounced forward, grabbing the blue fish-blade in its mouth and biting down, the shockwave from its pounce forcing Mark back a few steps. However, instead of shattering, the monster suddenly crackled with electricity, forcing the Manticore to drop it. (Mark LP: 7600 - 5400)

Lucy glanced at Mark in confusion. "Is it immune to battle destruction?"

He shook his head, holding up a card that had popped out of the Graveyard slot on his disk a moment earlier. "Nope, it's as vulnerable as a Skull Servant. But I can banish Thunderhino from my graveyard to prevent the destruction of a Performapal monster I control, and this is as good a time as any, I think."

Lucy nodded and waved her empty hand. "I have nothing more to play."

"Then I will draw!" Doing so, Mark glanced at the card he had drawn, and frowned. "I set a monster and another card, and move Sword Fish to defense position." He placed the two cards in his hand onto his disk, their Set images appearing on the field. The visible monster seemed to lean forward, setting itself into as defensive a stances as it could. He nodded to Lucy. "That'll be it."

She nodded and drew, before gesturing to her two monsters. "Lightray Manticore attacks the face-down monster while Soul of Light and Purity attacks Performapal Sword Fish." The two monsters moved at the same time, moving at their designated targets. Sword Fish was dissolved into sparkles of light while the Set monster was ripped to shreds, momentarily revealing it to be a purple snake of some sort. After her monsters had returned, Lucy nodded at Mark. "My turn is over."

He nodded, and drew again, adding a card to his empty hand. "Hmm...I'll pass."

Lucy drew again, increasing her hand size to two, and glanced at his field. Empty of monsters was tempting, certainly, but Performapal Pinch Helper was still face-up, so if she attacked, he could negate the attack and summon a monster...but her monsters were strong regardless.

"Lightray Manticore attacks you directly." The monster roared and charged, right into a wall of force that sent it rolling backward with a surprised yelp.

Mark smiled, two face-up Trap cards in front of him glowing. "My face-down Performapal Call, like Pinch Helper, activates when I'm attacked directly, and it'll negate the attack and lets me add two Performapal monsters from my deck to my hand, as long as their combined Defense is less than your monster's Attack. Your Manticore has 2800 Attack points, so I can add just about any two monsters I want to my hand…" He added the two cards that slipped out of his deck to his hand. "...and since Pinch Helper activated as well as Call, I get another Performapal from my deck, like Krazy Kanga!" The light from Pinch Helper formed into the shape of a monster that looked like a tie-and-hat-wearing kangaroo beating on a large drum. (Performapal Krazy Kanga DEF: 2100)

Lucy frowned. This was what she had hoped wasn't the case. All of his monster so far had seemed have fairly weak stats, and she'd gambled that none of them would have more defense than Soul of Light and Purity, but clearly that had backfired on her. "I'll set one card and end my turn."

Mark drew. "My turn, then!" He drew a card and glanced at it, before placing another card from his hand onto his disk. "When I have two Performapal cards on the field, I can summon this monster without a Tribute necessary. Pinch Helper is one, and Krazy Kanga is two, so I welcome Performapal Hammer Mammoth!"

A blue trumpeting elephant appeared, wearing a yellow vest with the obligatory tophat and bowtie, a very large and colorful hammer attached to the end of its trunk. It stamped excitedly, sending dust flurrying across the field. (Performapal Hammer Mammoth ATK: 2600)

Lucy pursed her lips at the new monster's power. Lightray Manticore was stronger, but Mark looked like he was kicking out stronger and stronger monsters now, and his Grand Entrance trap card had continued to accumulate Counters without anything happening to it. Clearly it was building up to summon something, but what?

Unaware of her thoughts, Mark pointed at the translucent monster across the field from him. "Hammer Mammoth smashes your Soul!" His monster responded with a trumpet and stomped forward, swinging the hammer on its trunk. "And its effect blows your Spell and Traps off the field when it attacks!" A swing of the hammer send a shockwave across the field, ripping up Lucy's set card and blowing it back to her hand.

Lucy caught the card, and then gestured at the attacked monster.. "Soul of Purity and Light's effect reduces your monster's Attack by 300 points during your Battle Phase." As she did, the monster gave a low cry, spreading waves of soft light across the field. Hammer Mammoth seemed to hesitate as the light played over it, its Attack falling to 2300, but it steeled itself and smashed its hammer into the glowing monster, dispersing its light. (Lucy LP: 6600 - 6300).

As it returned to his side of the field, Mark slipped two more cards onto his Disk, their Set forms appearing on the field. "That's it for now."

Lucy drew, looking at the field. Yes, his deck relied on tricky effects, at least when compared to her more straightforward one, and his two set cards were almost certainly either to power up his monster, or to replace it when she destroyed it. There was no way that he'd leave a weaker monster on the field without support. Still, she couldn't just leave it on the field. "Lightray Manticore attacks Performapal Hammer Mammoth!"

The monster roared and charged, its wings carrying it into the air. Hammer Mammoth gave a cry, trying to ward off the attacker with its trunk, but Manticore's wings carried it higher than the pachyderm could reach, and it dropped onto the elephant's back, claws sinking into the monster's skin, then stabbing viciously with its tail. The unfortunate creature shattered, causing the Manticore to roughly fall to the ground. (Mark LP: 5400 - 5200)

Mark didn't look concerned by the loss of his creature, however. "I activate Performapal Revival! When a Performapal is destroyed, I can replace it with another one from my hand or Graveyard. Thus, let's bring Sword Fish back to the field!" The trap turned to light, before shattering to reveal the familiar blue fish-blade.

"And his effect activates, reducing your monster's Attack and Defense by 600 points!" The Manticore roared, trying to knock away the barrage of blades that were projected at it, but it was unable to prevent itself from taking a few wounds. (Lightray Manticore ATK: 2800 - 2200)

Lucy frowned, and placed two cards on her disk. "Two Set cards will end my turn."

"And I activate my other card during your End Phase, Illusion Balloons!" The face-down card flipped up, and five large balloons emerged from it, floating in an arch over Mark's head. "Because a monster I controlled was destroyed this turn, I can excavate the top five cards of my deck, and if there's a Performapal monster among them, I can summon it to the field!"

Lucy winced as he pulled the cards off the top of his deck and looked at them. Odds were good there was at least one monster among that many cards.

Her suspicions were confirmed a moment later when a grin spread across Mark's face, and he selected one of the cards. The other four were put on top of his deck, which auto shuffled, while he placed the selected one on his Disk. "And so, let's welcome another Friendonkey to the field!"

All five balloons popped simultaneously, four of them merely producing a shower of confetti. The second from the left, however, released a donkey who, judging by its expression as it fell, clearly did not expect to appear on the field that way. (Performapal Friendonkey ATK: 1600)

As it landed, Lightray Manticore found itself under assault by more projected blades, leaving it with more scratches and wounds. He glanced at his monster. "Oh, Sword Fish's effect also activates activates when another Performapal is Special Summoned. I forgot to mention that, I guess." He looked at her with a bit of a sheepish expression on his face. (Lightray Manticore ATK: 2200 - 1600)

"But anyway, since you already ended your turn, I'll draw!" He did so, but didn't seem to look at the card, instead glancing up at Lucy. She could see him change a little, stand up a bit straighter. He'd been much more confident through the entire duel, although he probably didn't know, but now he looked downright cocky. Something was coming.

"First I'll summon Performapal Spikeagle from my hand!" His monster was a shades-wearing eagle whose feathers were arranged almost like a mohawk, giving it a ridge across the top of its head. Surprisingly, it didn't have a tophat on its head, although a bowtie was indeed present. (Performapal Spikeagle ATK: 900).

"And now the show begins! Grand Entrance now has 8 Entrance Counters on it, which means I can banish it to activate its effect! I can summon a Fusion monster by banishing Performapal monsters from my field or graveyard, so long as the Fusion monster's level is equal to or less than the number of Entrance Counters that were on Grand Entrance! And the monster I want to summon is level 8, so I have just enough!"

On his field, Sword Fish dissolved into energy, joined by two other trails that emerged from the Graveyard slot of his Duel Disk. "I fuse Performapals Sword Fish, Whip Snake, and the Friendonkey in my Grave!" The energies began to swirl around the machine behind him, which Lucy realized was now completely full of fireworks.

"Forged duelist of the seas, combine with the mesmerizing serpent and the ever-patient packmule to create the greatest show on earth! The fun's just getting started!" As he chanted, the fireworks began to send off sparks, clearly moments away from being ignited.

"Fusion Summon!"

And with those words, they exploded into the sky, lighting up the nearby sky with flashes of light. Hearing several ooohs and aaahs from nearby, Lucy looked around. Their duel seemed to have attracted a few visitors, all of whom seemed entranced by the firework display.

"Ladies and Gentlemen! Performapal Ring Master!" Mark hadn't noticed yet, it seemed, and as he finished his chant, a small shockwave blew the smoke away from where the machine had been, revealing the monster standing there. It looked like a young man with red eyes, wearing a brilliant red suit, with the area on his chest forming what looked like an orange hexagon, and a flared collar revealing that the inside of the coat was blue. The coat flared out at the monster's waist to reveal that his red pants. Black shoes, and black gloves completed the ensemble, while a pair of large goggles rested on red and green hair. It was twirling a performers staff with a blue sphere on the end as it walked forward to stand before Mark. (Performapal Ring Master ATK: 0)

Lucy's eyes narrowed as she observed the monster. "Where's the trick?" Level 8 monsters that required 3 materials and came with no Attack points had to have a powerful effect.

Mark grinned at her. "I'm glad you asked! While he may not have any Attack right now, he adds the Attack and Defense of all other Performapal Monsters on the field to his scores!" Friendonkey, Krazy Kanga, and Spikeagle all seemed to glow with energy, which flowed into Ring Master's staff. (Performapal Ring Master ATK: 0 - 3000)

"And his second effect allows me to Special Summon a Performapal monster from my hand or Graveyard once per turn, so let's welcome back Hammer Mammoth!" Once again, the air was filled with a trumpeting noise as the blue elephant reappeared with a flash from Ring Master's staff. "And his Attack rises once again!" (Performapal Ring Master ATK: 3000 - 5600)

"And now, my monster, attack!" Ring Master pointed its staff at her and fired a multicolored blast of energy at her, inexplicably exploding Lightray Manticore into confetti. (Lucy LP: 6300 - 2300)

Lucy's hand moved for her Duel Disk, almost without conscious thought, jabbing two buttons in quick succession. "I activate Hyper Refresh, doubling my Life Points since your monsters have more Attack points than I do Life Points while I have no monsters, chaining Numinous Healer to it to increase my life points by 1000 before that." As the two cards flipped up, she was surrounded with soothing white light for a moment, fading as the Life Point counter shot up. (Lucy LP: 2300 - 3300 - 6600)

Mark clapped, grinning. "You've padded your points to survive this turn, at least, but you're still going to lose quite a bit." He pointed dramatically at her. "Attack, the rest of my monsters!"

Hammer Mammoth, Spikeagle, and Friendonkey all attacked at about the same time, diving into the cloud of dust her defeated monster's explosion had created. When the cloud cleared a few moments later, she had been forced to her knees, feeling very thankful that this wasn't a duel where damage was real. (Lucy LP: 6600 - 4000 - 2400 - 1500)

Mark looked very impressed. "Well, I've never seen anyone stay on their feet after that much damage."

Lucy stood up, feeling very thankful that Solid Vision was mostly mental in terms of its effects. It could make you feel like you were getting the crap beaten out of you, but no damage was actually done. After being through more than one Shadow Game, this kind of pretend damage could be ignored. That wasn't to say that it didn't hurt, but it was definitely manageable. "I'm tougher than I look."

"I'll say." He glanced at his hand, and then at the field. "Well, my turn's over."

Lucy nodded, and stretched her arms before drawing. When she saw what it was, her expression morphing into a vicious grin. Adding it to her hand, she activated another card. "I play Reinvigorating Light, banishing Soul of Purity and Light, Lightray Manticore, and Lightray Jar from my Graveyard!" The three cards popped out of her Disk, and another one popped out of her Deck. "Then I can add a Lightray from my deck to my hand as long as its level is less than or equal than half the level of the banished monsters!"

Mark blinked. "Wait, when did that last one get into the Grave?"

"Lightray Kuriboh's effect put it there." she explained. "And speaking of it, since I banished Lightray Jar, I can banish another Lightray from my Graveyard, like Lightray Amphibian, to draw a card." Another two cards popped out of her Disk, one to go into the pouch on her waist, the other into her hand.

"And now, since I have at least five Lightray monsters with different names in my Banished Zone, I can summon Lightray Megarock!"

The ground behind her trembled and split , an avalanche of gold moving in the exact opposite direction most avalanches flowed. Both duelists did their best to stay balanced as from out of the ground emerged a massive four-legged creature of golden stone, with silver cracks running through it and solid blue eyes. (Lightray Megarock ATK: 0)

"Like its normal counterpart, Lightray Megarock gains 700 attack for each banished monster of a certain kind in the Grave. In its case, it's fueled by Light-Attribute monsters, and there are currently nine of them." The golden monster roared, silver veins flashing. (Lightray Megarock ATK: 0 - 6300)

Mark flinched a little at the roar, but held his ground. "It can beat Ring Master, but you won't finish me off!"

Lucy shook her head. "I'm attacking your Performapal Spikeagle, not Performapal Ring Master." Mark's head whipped around to stare at his small monster, calculating fast, and not liking the number he came up with.

She raised her hand, and pointed. "Lightray Megarock, attack Performapal Spikeagle." The creature roared again, the earth rippling as a wave of stone tore through the ground, impacting Spikeagle and covering the dueling area with a cloud of dust. As the dust cleared, Lucy started reaching for her Duel Gazer, only to be stopped short when the dust pulled back to reveal that not only was Spikeagle still around, but that Mark was seemingly untouched by the damage, his Life Points still at 5200.

"How did you survive? How is your monster around?" she questioned, a touch of incredulity creeping into her voice.

Mark grinned. "Ring Master has one more special ability. When he's out, all other Performapal monsters I control cannot be destroyed once per turn. As for my life points, Pinch Helper lived up to its name once again. By sending it to the grave, I can reduce the damage I take from a battle to zero."

Lucy nodded slowly, and glanced at her hand. "I activate the field spell Luminous Spark." Slotting it into her disk, their surroundings suddenly seemed to grow brighter and more rich in color. As it did so, Megarock roared as it powered up slightly. (Lightray Megarock ATK: 6300 - 6800)

"I'll set one card and end my turn." The set card appeared next to her as she nodded to Mark, who drew. Seeing what card he had drawn, he laughed.

"Oh, if only I drew this one turn earlier, then you'd have been in trouble. I equip Performapal Ring Master with United We Stand!" The monster seemed to stand taller and more confidently, even more energy streaming from the rest of the monsters to it. (Performapal Ring Master ATK: 5600 - 9600)

"And then I tribute Krazy Kanga for another Hammer Mammoth!" The water strider disappeared, and was replaced by a second blue elephant, trumpeting in chorus with the first one. As it did so, Ring Master's power increased yet again. (Performapal Hammer Mammoth ATK: 2600)(Performapal Ring Master ATK: 9600 - 11700)

Mark pointed dramatically at Lucy, Ring Master mirroring his stance. "And now for the finale! Ring Master attacks!" The monster raised its staff into the air, charging a sphere of multicolored energy that quickly grew bigger than the monster itself, humming with power. A flick of the monster's wrist, and the sphere rocketed at the giant monster of golden stone, impacting with a blast that drove Lucy to her knee again, and sent Mark stumbling backwards.

Finding his footing again, he looked up with a grin. "That's more like i-what!?"

The blast hadn't destroyed the monster - in fact, it seemed to have turned into golden energy, which was seeping into Megarock, erasing the silver cracks in its body as the monster's entire body began to glow with a brilliance that was almost too much to look at. "What happened!?"

"My trap card, Lumenize." Lucy responded as she got up. "It negates your attack and then adds the Attack of your monster to mine." And indeed, the golden creature was now pure gold in color, its blue-eyes having disappeared into the radiant gleaming of the rest of its body. (Lightray Megarock ATK: 6800 - 18500)

Mark gaped at the monster, before laughing. "And that's the final trick right there, without a card in my hand to stop it!" He laughed again. "I end my turn."

Lucy drew for a last time, not even bothering to glance at the card as she pointed towards Mark, an almost predatory grin on her face. "Lightray Megarock attacks with Luminous Cascade!"

Her monster moved. The next few moments were a confusion of brilliant gold and the roaring of both the monster and the flying earth. The Solid Vision cut off after a few moments, disappearing to reveal that Mark had been knocked back almost ten feet into a fortuitously placed hedge. (Mark LP: 5200 - 0)(Lucy WIN)

She hurried over to check on him. Solid Vision was tuned to avoid any real damage, but accidents did happen on occasion. He was pulling himself out of the hedge when she reached him, apparently unharmed. Her offered hand was accepted, and she helped pull him to his feet. "Are you OK?"

He nodded.

"Yeah, yeah...I'm good, thanks." He chuckled breathlessly. "I wasn't expecting to get hit with that, let me tell you."

"Are you feeling more relaxed now?"

Mark nodded. "Yeah, I am." He paused, and a grin spread across his face. "I am a lot more relaxed now. Just like you said!"

Mission success. "You were more relaxed and confident while dueling. If you can put yourself in the same mindset when performing as when you are dueling, you won't have as many issues with being nervous."

He sighed, bending down to brush some twigs and leaves off of his suit. "Yeah...I get what you mean. I don't know if I can exactly do it, but…" he looked up at her. "...thanks for helping me out, you know?"

She smiled. "I was very young when I first started learning magic. Someone helped me out and gave me advice then. I am doing for you what he did for me." Her smile took on a slight edge for a moment, which vanished as quickly as it had shown up.

Mark grinned, and then took a breath. "Thank you for your lesson. I hope I can make it worth your time to teach me." He glanced at a watch on his wrist, and blinked in surprise. "I still need to go and find out when exactly my performance slot is, though…"

She waved him off. "Go find out, then."

He gave her one last grin, and ran off towards the building. She watch him go, before making her own way back into the building, at a leisurely walk.

**OOOOO**

"A-and now, if you'll all observe that there is nothing on the table…"

His technical skills weren't actually all that bad, Lucy decided. After she had gone and picked up all her little gifts for the team back at Duel Town, she'd decided to see when he was performing. It turned out he'd been one of the first ones in line - his last name was Anderson.

"...an ordinary cloth, as you can see…"

He was definitely nervous, and it was affecting his overall show. Still, he wasn't panicking, and she could see him trying to not fumble around and get caught in his mistakes. And none of them were really technical mistakes either. A bit slow on some things, or not smooth enough on others, but he knew what he was doing well enough to not fail there. She couldn't tell if it was a talent for sleight of hand, or just being very well-practiced, but it was a firm foundation at the least.

"...a-and that's where my hat went!"

His patter and distraction skills were his weak points, but he was using what he had well enough. His tricks were a bit on the generic side, but if he was new, then it was to be expected. Developing your own repertoire took experience with what you were comfortable with, and where your skills went. She hadn't gone into her fiery collection of tricks until she'd found a book on fire eating and similar things, and realized that the slight resistance to fire she possessed could help that immensely.

"T-thank you for your time!"

He was rather rough around the edges, but so was everyone when they started out. What was important was that he definitely had the potential to get better, and he definitely had the determination to try and explore that to the utmost. And it wasn't as though he'd been unenjoyable, either. She joined in the polite clapping as he walked off the stage, standing up to leave as she did. The next item on her agenda here was starting soon, and there was no particular reason to stick around any more.

She left the hall, and disappeared into the crowds again, smiling to herself as she did.

**OOOOO**

_**Anime Cards:**_

**Hyper Refresh / Spell, Continuous**

**Effect**: Activate only if the combined ATK of your opponent's face-up monsters is higher than your Life Points, while you control no monsters. Double your Life Points.

**Image**: A completely darkened figure holding out a bottle labeled "REFRESH".

_**Custom Cards:**_

**Circus Arena / Spell, Continuous**

**Effect**: When a "Performapal" monster you control battles another monster, increase its Attack by 100 times the Level of the other monster.

**Image**: Performapal Silver Fang on top of a large circus ball with Performapal Spikeagle balancing on its head. They are in the spotlight of a circus ring.

**Grand Entrance / Trap, Continuous**

**Effect**: When you Normal or Special Summon a "Performapal" monster, place 1 Entrance Counter on this card. When your opponent activates a card effect in response to the Normal or Special Summon of a "Performapal" monster you control, place 1 Entrance Counter on this card. You can banish this card; Fusion Summon 1 "Performapal" Fusion Monster from your Extra Deck whose level is equal to or less than the number of Entrance Counters on this card by banishing the Fusion Materials listed on it from your Graveyard or field. You can only control 1 face-up "Grand Entrance".

**Image**: The shadowed form of Performapal Ring Master as it prepares to walk through a doorway into a lit arena.

**Performapal Krazy Kanga / Level 5 / FIRE / Beast/Effect / 500 ATK/2100 DEF**

**Effect**: Once per turn, when this card changes Battle Position, increase the ATK and DEF of all "Performapal" monsters you control by 500 until the second End Phase after this effect's activation.

**Image**: A kangaroo with a bowtie and tophat, beating enthusiastically on a drum.

**Performapal Ring Master / Level 8 / DARK / Spellcaster/Fusion/Effect / 3 "Performapal" monsters / 0 ATK/0 DEF**

**Effect**: This card can only be Special Summoned by Fusion Summoning, and cannot be Special Summoned by other means. This card gains ATK and DEF equal to the ATK and DEF of all "Performapal" monsters you control. Other "Performapal" monsters you control cannot be destroyed in battle or by card effects once per turn.

**Image**: A young man with red and green hair in a multi-colored circus master's outfit.

**Reinvigorating Light / Spell, Normal**

**Effect**: Banish two or more LIGHT monsters from your Graveyard; Add 1 "Lightray" monster from your Deck to your hand whose level is equal to or less than half the combined levels of the banished monsters.

**Image**: Lightray Grepher and Lightray Gearfried holding their hands over a fallen Lightray Sorcerer. White light is flowing from their hands into Sorcerer's body.

**Lightray Kuriboh / Level 1 / LIGHT / Fiend/Effect / 300 ATK/200 DEF**

**Effect**: When a "Lightray" monster you control is destroyed, you can Special Summon this card from your hand and send 1 LIGHT monster from your Deck to the Graveyard. If this card was Special Summoned this way, banish it when it leaves the field.

**Image**: A Kuriboh with silver fur and gentle blue eyes - gold wings made of light seem to spread from either side of it.

**Lightray Amphibian / Level 1 / LIGHT / Aqua/Effect / 100 ATK/100 DEF**

**Effect**: When a "Lightray" monster you control is destroyed, you can Special Summon this card from your hand or Graveyard. If you Special Summoned this card from the Graveyard by this effect, banish it when it leaves the field.

**Image**: A golden frog with several silver markings on its body. It seems to be falling down from the sun.

**Lightray Manticore / Level 8 / LIGHT / Beast/Effect / 2800 ATK/2500 DEF**

**Effect**: If you Tribute Summon this card by Tributing LIGHT Monster(s) you can banish a number of LIGHT monsters from your Graveyard equal to the number of LIGHT monsters used to Tribute Summon this monster and destroy a number of cards on the field equal to the number of monsters banished.

**Image**: A manticore with a golden body covered in white armor. its tail is a blue scorpion's tail, and it has two bat wings that turn from silver along the arm to blue at the ends.

**Lightray Megarock / Level 7 / LIGHT / Rock/Effect / 0 ATK/0 DEF**

**Effect**: This card cannot be Normal Summoned/Set. This card can only be Special Summoned if you have 5 or more "Lightray" monsters with different names in your Banished Zone. This card gains 700 ATK and DEF for each LIGHT monster in your Banished Zone.

**Image**: A giant dragon-like creature made of rocks that look almost like liquid gold, with glowing blue eyes. Silver lines seem to mark where the golden rocks are joined.

**Lightray Jar / Level 2 / LIGHT / Rock/Effect / 700 ATK/600 DEF**

**Effect**: When this card is banished you can banish 1 "Lightray" monster from your graveyard to draw 1 card.

**Image**: A white jar with blue and gold decorations and a pair of glowing eyes.

**OOOOO**

_Next Time, on Shadowchasers: Normality:_

_Arcane Apprentice_


	2. Pilot: Arcane Apprentice

Main Street in Fenderson, Iowa is a bit of a microcosm of the city as a whole. If one takes a look at the entire street, and the buildings on it, a particular trend emerges. There is the usual assortment of pawn shops, banks, and tourist stores, as one might find in any city, but the majority of the buildings service one particular pastime - Duel Monsters. Whether card shops, small dueling arenas, or the occasional dojo that tries to keep the idea of Dueling Styles alive (or perhaps just trains people for the more physical aspects of dueling), one can take a single look at the street, and conclude that the city is devoted to the game of Duel Monsters.

Of course, looking off to where the Mid-West Duel Academy campus was located, about a mile from where Main Street was located, then such an obsession would make sense. This city was where about a third of the prospective Duelists in the United States would come to learn the art of the card game, and establishments designed to cater to those students would naturally spring up around the campus. This continues to make sense when one takes into account how the city was born around the Academy, and grew into a sizable college town focused around it. That such a city was nicknamed "Duel Town" is thus of no surprise, considering the previous observations.

And now we turn our attention away from Main Street and the Duel Academy to a medium-large brick building on one of the streets that branch off of Main Street, located about a mile away from both the Academy and Main Street. The building doesn't look like much; if anything it resembles a combination of house and business. A driveway on one side leads to a large garage door, wide enough that the space on the other side could likely hold four cars. The front door appears wooden, and the windows are generally covered with shades. There is no sign, or markings to indicate what it is for, or what happens inside. Most Mundanes who pass by assume that it's a business office, or a quiet outpost for the Fenderson Police Department. In a way, both of ideas are correct, although they only touch on a part of what happens in the building.

This is where the Duel Town Shadowchasers have their headquarters.

**OOOOO**

Inside the building, an alarm was ringing. Specially-placed lights, which at first glance looked like fire alarms unless someone noticed the actual fire alarms on the ceiling, were flashing in a quiet yet insistent rhythm, and the sound of bells ringing echoed in time with the flashing lights. Neither were especially distracting, but it would be extremely difficult to ignore them.

A door slammed open, and a brown-haired bespectacled human in dirty mechanic's overalls on top of cargo pants and a blue shirt entered the living room, leaving the door to the garage open behind him. By the time he'd crossed the room, his overalls had been shed to lay on the floor, and he pulled open another door, this one leading downstairs into the basement of the building. Grabbing the handrail, he slid down and hit the bottom running, swerving around a large table to a room where the flashing lights were brighter and the alarm bells louder. Smacking a button on the wall to turn them off as he entered, he glared at the large map of the city mounted on one of the walls.

"Now, what are you and where are you?"

He eyeballed the map, focusing in on a clear gem that had two small red circles glowing around it, floating over a specific spot of the map. Most Shadowchasers bases had some kind of detection system in order to alert them to powerful magical energies, but this one was a bit special. The first leader of this branch of the Shadowchasers had won a bet with an Incantifier, who had upgraded their system as his payment. It could track multiple sources of magic and locate them on the map of the city, identify the elemental and main spell-type of the magic in question, as well as track specific markers - for instance, a particular stone with "Mira" written on it was currently floating over Duel Academy on the map, and another one labeled "Carter" was over where their headquarters was on the map. Another, labeled "Lucy" was floating off to one side in a space labeled "Out of Range". Taking this all in, Carter pondered.

"Hmm….Fire-aligned, Conjuration of some kind, and fortunately away from any particularly crowded areas…" He grabbed a pack hanging off of the wall, he checked the contents as he turned to leave, clipping it around his waist as he did so. "...and I'm the only one on duty. Awesomeness. At least I'd just put my bike back together.."

He took the stairs two at a time, shutting the door behind him and stepping over the overalls he'd left on the floor. Re-entering the garage, he grabbed a helmet and jacket from hooks on the wall, slinging them on with a cry of "Henshin!" Strapping a sword-carrying sheath to his back, he smacked a button on the wall, grinning underneath his helmet. As he pushed the button, the garage door began to open as a dramatic soundtrack played out of speakers in the ceiling, the music ramping up in intensity as the door rose.

He mounted a blue Duel Runner decorated with silver gear patterns, revving once or twice as he waited for the music to reach a crescendo, before he hit the accelerator and drove out of the garage, which started to close as he turned out of the driveway and onto the main road.

Easing onto a thoroughfare, he punched a button on the dash of his bike, instructing it to "Call Mira". A few moments of a dialing tone passed, before she picked up.

"Carter, if you're calling about getting into the campus workshops again I would like to remind you that I am currently teaching."

He winced. "As much as I'm sure you enjoy talking to me, I'm calling on business, not pleasure." He pulled to a stop at a red light, revving impatiently as he waited. "The system picked up a magical aura, Conjuration-based and fire-aligned, moderate aura. It's in the southwest-ish of town, near that old abandoned-"

"-factory where you broke your leg, I remember." She finished his sentence. "I've got maybe half an hour left before I can leave, will you be alright on your own?"

The light turned green, and Carter was off again. "I mean, unless the place is on fire or something, I should be alright. Or if it's somebody trying to conjure up an army of Fire Elementals or is a Fire Dragon Slayer or who knows what. So, we'll see."

Mira sighed over the call. "Well, good luck. I'll be there when I can." She hung up, leaving Carter to grin. Pushing another button on his Duel Runner, music began to blast into his helmet, and he swerved around a car, speeding up as best he could.

**OOOOO**

As he pulled up to the block where the magic had been sourced to, Carter looked around. It didn't look particularly special. It consisted of a couple of office buildings, most of them looking completed, but still under construction enough to warrant having signs and chain-link fences up to keep trespassers away.

"Well, there could be a lot worse places for this to show up. Nobody being around's a pretty good coincidence."

He leaned his bike up against the fence next to the gate in, slipping the helmet into a compartment on the bike. He locked the bike's controls, unclipping his Duel Disk as he did so. Strapping it to his arm, he inspected the chain and padlock.

"Hmm….nothing special here." He reached into the pack at his waist, and fished around for a moment, before removing a small vial. Uncorking it, he slipped a finger in, and pulled a bit of what looked like metal-grey clay out. Flipping the padlock around to reveal the keyhole, he carefully pressed the substance into the lock, trying to work as much as he could into it. After a few moments of work, he reached out and tapped the keyhole with his left ring finger, eyes closed in concentration.

"Open."

He cracked an eye to look at the lock, which hadn't changed in the slightest. He tapped it again.

"Open."

At the lock's continued insistence to not change, he sighed and reached for the vial again. "Not enough, damn. I don't want to use too much of this stuff…."

Withdrawing another portion of it, he smeared more into the lock, spending extra time making sure it had been pressed into the lock mechanism. He tapped it again, his concentrated expression mixed with a bit of impatience.

"Open."

When he spoke the word this time, the clay seemed to shimmer, turning metallic in color. After a moment, it evaporated into thin air, and the padlock clicked open. Seeing the success, Carter smirked.

"Key-Doh. The best tool for breaking and entering without a trace." Snapping the lid back onto the vial, he undid the chain keeping the door locked, hanging the padlock from the wire on the fence.

Carefully pulling open the gate, he slipped into the work site, glancing around. "Hmmm...could be anywhere in these buildings...I'd need some way to sense power levels to find it."

He reached up to his glasses, and pulled them off his face, blowing some dust off with his breath, before tapping one of the lenses with his left ring finger, being careful to only touch the lens with the nail of the finger.

"Filter."

Slipping his glasses back on, he blinked a bit, getting used to his new viewpoint. Through the lens he had tapped, he now saw faint shimmering glows overlaid on top of his normal vision. Of course, seeing that with only one eye was a bit disorienting, and he closed his other eye, scanning the area. He quickly focused in on one of the buildings, where about two floors up the shimmering glow was concentrated - almost like seeing the air ripple above hot pavement, but extremely concentrated. And glowing in an oddly colorless way. So not at all like heat ripples, but it's an appropriate metaphor. "Got you."

Taking off his glasses again, he tapped the lens again, and with the command of "Clear" put them back on, vision now freed from the shimmering. Double checking to make sure his sword and Duel Disk were in place, he jogged to the building he'd seen the shimmering in.

He pushed the door open to the building, checking his surroundings as he did so. What greeted his was the silent emptiness of a building that had only been just finished being constructed, a bare room leading to two bare hallways through doors on either side of the room. Glancing between them, he sighed. "Where's my quest marker when I need it? Or even a minimap…"

Taking the left door, he walked down the hallway, slightly opening the few doors along the way, but finding nothing by empty rooms. Pushing open the door at the end of the hall, he emerged into a large atrium, stretching up several floors, with large glass windows on one side providing a view of what would probably be a parking lot with tastefully maintained plant life to beautify it. But more importantly to Carter, there was a large stairway winding up to the various floors.

"Thank the gods for aesthetics and impressive-looking atriums." He dashed up the atrium stairs, trying to take them three at a time, but being foiled by the flights having sixteen steps to go up a floor. Shifting back down to two steps at a time, he reached the third floor, and glanced around to see if he could figure out where to go.

"Let's see, if I were a lot of firey magic, I'd be…." At this point, he glanced down a corridor that connected with the loop of floor surrounding the atrium's empty space just to the right of where the stairs connected, and noticed a suspiciously flickering light source coming out of a doorway partway down it. "...right there, I think."

He cautiously slid down the hallway, keeping to the same side of the wall as the door was on, doing his best to be quiet. As he approached the door, he tried to peer through the crack where the door met the doorframe, the partially open door giving him a tiny crack to peer through. Fortunately, the door opened towards him, so whoever was inside there wouldn't be as able to accidentally see him, but at the same time his visibility into the room was limited. Unable to determine anything except for the presence of flickering light, he stilled, listening for any sounds in the room, any sort of chanting or conversation that might give him an edge.

Oddly, there was nothing of that sort either. Just the faint sound of flickering flames, nothing else. None of the ominous chanting in strange forgotten languages, or the whispered murmuring of plans. Carter frowned, and considered his options. Try to get a better grip of what was going on via stealthy observation, just go in directly, or perhaps something else? What to do, what to do….

And so it was that he took the middle road, and did his best to silently dive through the door and roll into the center of the room, sword ready to be drawn if it turned out that he'd be in trouble for doing this. He mostly succeeded too, with only a quiet thud as he hit the ground and a little rattling from the various accoutrements that he wore. He skidded into a bit of a three point stand, glancing around for the source of the flickering light, eyes finally lighting on-

"Finally someone shows up to show me around. So rude, not greeting guests and leaving me here to be cold."

-On a creature whose lower half was that of a snake, and upper half that of a human, albeit a short one one whose body was entire composed of fire, ash, and perhaps a bit of lava. It was seated, or at least it gave that impression with how its lower half was arranged, in front of a large vertical disk floating in mid-air, through which a pure mass of fire could be seen. Fortunately for the building, neither the disk, nor the creature appeared to be setting anything on fire, though ash was starting to build up as it floated off the creature.

Carter took a deep breath, and let it out, stalling to let his mind rearrange itself and figure out this scenario. This was a Salamander, native to the Elemental Plane of Fire, and generally partially malicious in nature. Still, one appearing in an area that wasn't extremely hot was unusual to say the least. Especially since it was complaining about being cold, though for a creature native to a place of pure heat pretty much anywhere on Earth would be cold. It also answered the nature of the magical signature as well - the disk was likely a portal of some kind, opened to let the Salamander through. At least this room was big enough to give him room the maneuver if it came to a fight. The fire that would be everywhere if that happened would be difficult to deal with, but he felt confident enough in his ability to at least hurt it badly enough that it would retreat back through the portal. That was the plan, anyway, although this was the first Salamander he'd ever encountered. A very impatient Salamander who was tapping on the ground with its tail.

"Well? Are you going to say anything, or just pose there and look silly."

Briefly considering doing some fabulous posing for the heck of it, Carter discarded the idea and stood up, his hand carefully sliding away from his sword. "So….who are you, and why are you here?"

The Salamander huffed. "I am here to visit! To see the sight, of course. What else would I be doing here?"

"Well...what sight do you mean, exactly? There's more than a few around here, the Duel Academy and Kaibaland among others."

The Salamander looked a bit confused. "What? I have no interest in….those...places. I wish to see the sight! All the water that supposedly exists in one place!"

Carter paused, again reevaluating the situation. "The ocean?"

The Salamander nodded. "Of course! What else would I be talking about?"

"Possibly many places. That being said, there's….a bit of an issue if you want to see the ocean."

"What, does it not actually exist?" It sounded almost mocking now.

"Uh, no, it definitely exists. The problem is more that we're a good couple hundred miles from it right now than anything else."

"And now I know you're lying. This crack" it gestured at the portal behind it "definitely lead to a 'coastal' area. I did the calculations and everything, even asked someone who is really good at planar travel!."

Carter shook his head. "Believe me, as someone who lives here, I can assure you that the ocean is nowhere near us right now. There's a few lakes that are closer if you want to visit them?"

The Salamander huffed again. "I knew-" It said something that sounded like hissing flame "- was lying. Sure, small bodies of water could exist if you collected all of it, but an endless expanse?" It made a dismissive gesture with one hand. "Completely impossible."

"Ok, I can show you pictures and videos if you want-"

"Easily faked! Show me the real thing, or admit that it does not exist!" The Salamander glared at him.

"...OK, look. Regardless of if the ocean is real or not, can I ask what you plan to do? I'm part of a law enforcement agency on this plane, and I'd like to have some idea of what you plan to do."

The Salamander scoffed. "A liar such as yourself enforcing the law? Absurd, but if you must know, I shall wait until someone who is willing to tell me the truth arrives."

"That's...problematic, at least. This building's going to be used for business, and your presence is going to cause issues . And don't you need to eat or something like that?"

"Unlike such fleshy creatures as yourself, I am a creature of purity and need only fire to survive. I can slip back through the crack for a few moments to feed, and then return to waiting until someone who is not a liar arrives."

Carter sighed, feeling the beginnings of a headache coming on. "Look….let's back up a minute here. Why do you want to see the ocean so badly?"

The Salamander crossed his arms, looking increasingly annoyed at the persistently unhelpful human. "If you must know, I had a disagreement with one of my friends. He believes that without magic or the nature of a plane to hold it in place, massive bodies of water are capable of existing, whereas I consider that to be preposterous and blatantly impossible. And since you are clearly unable to show me a thing, then I win the bet."

Yep, Carter definitely had a headache now. "So...you're here because you're trying to win a bet about whether or not the ocean exists. And you won't go away until someone proves you wrong. Or right, you aren't making a lot of sense on that front."

The Salamander glared at him. "An insulting liar, at that. I see no reason why I should listen to you." It waved at him dismissively. "Go find someone else who can actually help me."

Carter sighed, pinching his nose. "Well, I'm the only one right now, there isn't anyone else."

It smirked. "Well then, we have reached an impasse. Will you stop lying to me now?"

"I'm not lying!"

"Clearly you are, since you refuse to show me the ocean you claim exists."

"Only because it's impractical to do so!"

"Thus, liar."

"Am not!"

"Totally are."

"Am not!"

"Definitely a liar."

"I am no-" Carter cut himself off, refusing to be sucked into this kind of back and forth. As he took a deep breath to try and calm himself down, an idea occurred to me. The Salamander wasn't a Shadowkind, strictly speaking, but maybe…"How about we resolve this another way, with a bet?"

A look of interest crossed the Salamander's cross face. "And why should I believe such a liar as yourself on this?"

"Because I'm staking my honor as an officer of the law on this. And because if I lose I will be the Rincewind to your Twoflower and show you the ocean."

Confusion momentarily crossed the Salamander's face at the reference, but it passed, leaving the creature to huff. "You'd better. And if you win?"

"Then you'll agree to go back through your portal and close it behind you. I can't stop you from trying to go through another portal to try and hit someplace close to the ocean again, but I'd prefer if you tried a different one than this." He hoped it'd go for this as it apparently had at least some willingness to bet, based on its story.

The Salamander considered this. "And what medium to you propose to settle this bet? There are few ways in which someone like you could compete with someone like me."

Carter raised the arm his Duel Disk was strapped to. "Have you heard of Duel Monsters? Because that's what will settle our bet!"

The Salamander tilted his head to the side. "A Shadow Game? I cannot truly invoke one as I'm not that great at magic yet." It glared at Carter, as if daring him to comment. "Yet! I'm still learning some ins and outs of magic! But even with my skill, I can still infuse the game with fire to simulate it, so hah!"

Carter blinked. Shadow Game? Wait- "Hang on, hang on, I never said anything about a Sha-urk!"

A gesture from the Salamander brought a whip of flame out of the portal, swirling around him like a loop, before a shooing gesture from the creature sent it expanding outward. Carter hit the floor as the loop passed through where he had been standing a moment earlier, until it stopped in a circle about 20 feet wide, and fell to the floor. When it touched the floor, flames sprang up, forming a fiery circle surrounding the two of them.

"WHAT THE HECK WAS THAT!?" Making sure no more fire would be coming his way yet, he carefully clambered back to his feet, glaring at the Salamander. "I didn't say a Shadow Game, I said Duel Monsters!"

"And then you'll tell me that you somehow don't need an infusion of magic to invoke the spirits for such a game, humm?" The Salamander's tone was still huffy, although an air of legitimate confusion was starting to creep in.

"YES!" He gestured to his Duel Disk, pulling out his deck to show it off (but keeping the bottom pointed away from the Salamander, just to avoid revealing anything. Well, Call of the Haunted didn't exactly say anything about his deck, but it was the principle of the thing). "We just use these cards, and you...can use your magic, and it'll work with this, I can't say I understand how, but you don't need to invoke a Shadow Game to duel!"

"Oh. Uhhh….huh." The confusion had more or less taken over the Salamander's face, but it rallied, obviously trying to keep up its act. "And this isn't a Shadow Game as you think it is, I have simply invoked the spirits of fire to allow this game to happen!"

Carter gestured at the ring of fire that surrounded them. "And you had to do that as well!"

"I am only learning! I haven't worked out how to separate the parts yet!" It glared at him. "Yet! I'm learning!"

Carter buried his face in his hands groaning as the headache came back full force. "Ok. Ok. You know what? Let's just get this started already, alright?"

The Salamander humphed, its composure mostly regained. It held forth one arm, which suddenly erupted into an arc of fire, which solidified and cooled into a Duel Disk that looked as if it was made of not-quite-cooled lava, with slightly glowing cracks in it denoting where the various card zones were on it. The deck itself had cooled into what appeared to be normal-looking Duel Monster cards, although given how Carter had just seen them appear from fire, any normality on their part was questionable. Carter activated his Duel Disk as well, his glasses shimmering again as the built-in Duel Gazer activated.

"Duel!" (Carter LP: 8000 - Salamander LP: 8000)

They both drew five cards, with Carter moving first. "I'll take the first move! First I activate Arcane Barrier!"

As he played the card, a shimmering series of magical circles appeared, in a glowing tower about the size of a person. Two more cards were placed on his disk, and two set cards appeared, one a monster and the other not.

"Alright, you're up…" Carter trailed off. "...you know, I don't actually know what your name is, and saying 'you'," as he said the word in a dramatic voice, "is kinda impersonal. So what's your name?"

The Salamander drew, and glanced down at his cards from Carter. "It's nice that you're finally being the polite person you should be, so I have no reason to refuse your request. I summon The Thing in the Crater."

He played a card on his disk, and the ground next to him seemed to suddenly collapse inward, the newly formed depression filling with lava from an unseen source. A creature that was completely black, with glowing blue spots for eyes seemed to poke out of the lava for a moment, before diving back down. (The Thing in the Crater ATK: 1000)

"I activate Supply Squad, and set two cards to end by turn." A face-up Spell showing a group of Goblins pushing a cart through a rain of explosions appeared, along with two more face-downs on either side of it.

"You still haven't told me your name," Carter commented as he drew. "Come to think of it, I haven't told you my name either. I'm Carter."

The Salamander glared at him. "Fine. My name's-" and then said something that sounded to Carter's ears exactly like the campfire from the one time he had been convinced to try camping.

"I...can't pronounce that, you know. I don't think my vocal cords can even do that."

The Salamander looked triumphant. "Well, then it's your problem, not mine. It's not my fault you're fleshy."

Glaring at the creature of fire, Carter glanced at his hand. "I'll call you Sabo then."

The now-named Sabo started angrily. "And here I thought you couldn't get any possibly ruder, you jus-"

"Moving on," Carter said, interrupting what was probably the beginning of a tirade of sorts (was Sabo an insensitive name? He wasn't sure). "I summon Crusader of Endymion!"

The monster that appeared as he played his card looked like a human in tight-fitting brown robes, made exceptional by the large pieces of blue armor that were floating over his body. Sabo quieted down, looking at the monster thoughtfully while still muttering under his breath. (Crusader of Endymion ATK: 1900)

"And since your monster is so weak in Attack Mode, I think I'll find out why you put it where you did, and attack it!" Crusader's armor began glowing with runes, and it charged an energy blast in both of its hands, reaching forward to point both hands at the crater. Energy flared across the armor, and the energy blasts fired, lancing out across the field. As they were about to strike their target vanished, the crater vanished. The lava drained away in a moment and the floor somehow collapsed upward into a smooth surface again.

"Wha-" Carter's explanation was interrupted as the flames surrounding him surged outward for a moment, sending tongues of heat licking across his body for a moment, and then down to the area in front of Sabo. There they pooled together, forming a small red-furred fox that hunkered down on the field in front of the Salamander. As it did so, a small flame lit up at the end of its tail. (Carter LP: 8000 - 7500) (Fox Fire DEF: 200)

"Aaaaaahh! What the heck?" Carter frantically checked over his clothing to make sure nothing had caught fire, throwing a few glares towards Sabo as he did so.

The Salamander looked at him, and then pointed at his field, where three face-up cards were glowing. "I activated Generation Shift when you attacked me, and chained Backfire to it. Generation Shift destroyed my monster and let me add another copy of it from my deck to my hand. From there, Backfire took away 500 of your life points, and The Thing's effect allowed me to summon Fox Fire from my hand."

As he finished his explanation, Supply Squad suddenly spawned a miniature version of the cart, propelled by several goblins who madly ran around as several explosions erupted near them, one dispelling the holographic image of Generation Shift. The last explosion sent them and the cart flying back into the card image, although a normal-sized card flew out of the explosion to be grabbed by Sabo. "Oh, and because a monster I controlled was destroyed, Supply Squad allows me to draw a card, but only once per turn."

Carter nodded, his frenetic reaction momentarily derailed by the technical explanation. "Alrighty then." There was a beat. "But what about the fire? What was up with that!?"

Sabo looked at him with a bit of confusion on his face. "I told you that I'd invoked the spirits of fire. What did you think they were going to do?"

"Well, enforce the penalty on the loser? That's generally what Shadow Games do."

The Salamander nodded. "And you have suffered a penalty for losing Life Points. What's the issue?"

Carter opened and closed his mouth a few times, words not quite managing to make it out of his mouth. He stopped trying, and took a deep breath, calming himself down. "Ok. Alright. Anything else happening that I should know about?"

Sabo shook his head. "As you were."

"Right. Right." He glanced at his cards for a moment, and the back to the field. "I'll continue the attack on Fox Fire."

His monster charged the magical bolts again, firing them at the fox like creature, who huddled in an oddly cute way as it was blasted into a wisp of flame, which expanded and washed around Carter again. Expecting it this time, he did his best to shield himself from the fire with his disk, to partial success. (Carter LP: 7500 - 7000)

"Alright, I think that's enough for this turn."

Sabo smirked. "Then as you do, Fox Fire's effect activates! It's really hard to extinguish fire properly, and battle isn't how you get rid of Fox Fire, because then he comes right back to the field! I'm afraid all you lost there was Life Points!"

A small fire flared up in front of him again, and the flame-tipped fox reappeared, curling itself up into a small ball. (Fox Fire DEF: 200)

"Well, that's just wonderful," Carter grumbled.

Sabo nodded and drew. "I summon Solar Flare Dragon!"

From out of the flames swirled a serpent-like being made of fire and scales, hissing as it curled and twitched, the body shivering like the fire it was made out of. (Solar Flare Dragon ATK: 1500)

Carter rolled his eyes. "Of course you'd have that, of course. Burn deck, based around firey monsters, of course you have Solar Flare Dragon in there somewhere. And I can't even attack it while your other monster is on the field, since it's a Pyro-type."

"Oh, not even that." Sabo played another card, and the scales on Solar Flare Dragon shimmered, becoming gold and white. "Raregold Armor prevents you from attack any monster except for my Dragon!"

Carter sighed. "Which means my attacks are all sealed. Wonderful."

Another card slapped onto the Salamander's Disk, and then he pointed at his fiery serpent. "And during my End Phase, Solar Flare Dragon's effect activates. I hope I don't have to explain what it is?"

"500 points of damage.." Carter murmured, turning his back to face the monster as it spat a burst of fire at him. Having expected this, the fire rolled off the back of his jacket, leaving him mostly unharmed, but making the hair on the back of his neck feel distinctly crispy. (Carter LP: 7000 - 6500)

He pulled a card from the top of his deck and sighed. "Right, I hope this works…"

He flipped a card on his disk, and on the field his Set monster turned face-up, revealing a woman who looked a lot like a stereotypical gypsy fortuneteller in blue and red robes. In front of her floated three crystal balls - one large, and two smaller ones that orbited around the larger one. (Crystal Seer ATK: 100)

"My Crystal Seer's effect allows me to draw two cards from the top of my deck when she's flipped face up. One of them will go to my hand, and the other goes to the bottom of my deck, so I hope I get something good…"

The two smaller crystal balls floated away from the monster to hover in front of Carter, before shimmering and becoming cards, backs pointed toward Sabo. Carter examined the two of them for a moment, and grabbed one, a wide grin spreading across his face. "That's more like it!"

The unchosen card faded away as he played the one he had just selected. "I summon Effect Veiler!"

A light shimmered, and in front of him appeared an angelic figure with a soft white dress, black leggings, and turquoise hair. Behind it a pair of translucent wings fluttered, completing the look. (Effect Veiler ATK: 0)

Sabo scoffed at the monster. "Is this some strange strategy? Weak monsters have strong effects, but that one doesn't even activate on the field."

Carter tilted his head. "Well, you clearly know about it, but not enough apparently. You see, while this monster is definitely more useful in the hand, it has another use when on the field - namely, performing its duty as a Tuner!"

Sabo gasped. "A Synchro Summon?"

Carter paused. "Well, I guess I'm getting a little premature on that. Before I do that, I activate the spell card Magical Blast, which inflicts 200 points of damage to you for each Spellcaster I control, which means 600 points of damage is going your way!"

A swirl of energy appeared, siphoning out of the three monsters on the field, and shot at the Salamander, knocking it back a little. (Sabo LP: 8000 - 7400)

Carter pointed his right hand into the air. "I tune my level 4 Crusader of Endymion and level 2 Crystal Seer with me level 1 Extra Veiler!"

His three monsters dissolved into light, Extra Veiler forming a single ring while the others become five points of light that lined up inside the circle. "Spirits align as the greatest student of the Master Magician prepares his spell! Bow before his arcane might!"

The circle and points became a pillar of light, in which an indistinct figure could be seen. "Arcanite Magician, Synchro Summoned!"

As the pillar vanished, the figure stepped forward, spinning a wand-like staff in one hand. It was humanoid, with dark skin and patterned blue robes over red and blue armor, complete with an odd three-pointed hat. (Arcanite Magician ATK: 400)

Sabo stared at it. "After your revelation about the Tuner, I can only assume there's another catch here."

"And right you are!" Carter grinned as Arcanite Magician raised its wand, summoning two black spheres marked with a triangle symbol to float around the implement. "When he's summoned, he gets two Spell Counters on him, and by his effect, he gains 1000 Attack for each one! And I think I'll supplement that by playing Spell Power Grasp to give him another one!"

He played the card, and another sphere was summoned into existence to float around the Spellcaster, who seemed to draw power from them. (Arcanite Magician ATK: 400 - 2400 - 3400)

A card popped out of his deck with a beep and he added it to his hand. "Oh, and I get another Spell Power Grasp to my hand, but I can only activate one per turn, so I can't boost Magician's power any further."

Sabo looked taken aback by the the meteoric rise of the monster's Attack power, before calming himself down. "No matter how many attack points it has, your monster still cannot attack me!"

"But I don't need to attack you with this monster! By removing a Spell Counter, I can destroy a card you control, and it's not limited to happening once per turn! Thus, I think I'll destroy your Fox Fire and Solar Flare Dragon! Eldritch Blast!"

The magician pointed his staff at Sabo's field, two of the three orbs lighting up and turning into energy bolts, which shattered the two monsters. The dragon and fox burst into another two waves of flame which rippled across Carter, while a bomb rolled out of the Supply Wagon card and exploded to send another card into Sabo's hand. (Carter LP: 6500 - 6000 - 5500)(Arcanite Magician ATK: 3400 - 2400 - 1400)

"And since you're wide open now, I'll attack you directly!" The magician aimed its staff at Sabo, and with a glow from both the orb on the tip of the implement and from the lone Spell Counter orbiting it, fired a purplish energy blast, sliding the Salamander back a foot. (Sabo LP: 7400 - 6000)

"Aaaand, that's about it, I think. You're up, Sabo!"

"That's not my name, cretin," Sabo snapped back as he slid back up to his original position. "Whenever you end up doing something impressive, you go right back to insults, don't you?"

"And if your name was something I was physically capable of pronouncing, I'm sure I'd use it, but I do have to call you something after all." Carter cocked his head to the side. "Spark, may-"

"NO!" The interruption was loud and fast, with the Salamander looking mad enough to spit fire. "You call me that, and I shove fire down your-" At this point, his brain seemed to catch up with what his mouth was saying and he abruptly stopped, sullenly grabbing a card off of his deck. He glanced at it, and then sullenly slapped a card onto his Disk.

"I set a monster and end my turn."

Carter looked at him, concerned. "You OK? I didn't mean to touch a nerve there or anything…"

The Salamander glared at him, eyes flickering a lot more than they should have. "It is none of your business, liar."

"Back to the insults, I see…" Carter drew, glancing at the card. Adding it to his hand, he played another one.

"My second copy of Spell Power Grasp adds another Spell Counter to my Magician, which then destroys your face-down monster!" Another Spell Counter appeared around Arcanite Magician's staff, and was promptly turned into a bolt of energy, shattering the card to reveal a familiar image of a shadowed creature sitting in a crater. (Arcanite Magician ATK: 1400 - 2400 - 1400)

"...Was that your second copy of The Thing in the Crater?"

Sabo jerked his head in a nod. "I choose to not use its effect, but my other two cards still activate."

Supply Wagon glowed, and a Goblin heroically wrapping its body around a bomb flew out, skidding along the ground until the bomb exploded, sending a card flying out of the smoke to be caught by the Salamander. The shockwave sent a ripple through the circle of flames around the two duelists, sparking another wave of fire that flowed over Carter's body. (Carter LP: 5500 - 5000)

Carter would have attempted to block the flames, but ignored them this time, choosing to instead stare at the holographic image of the Supply Wagon card. "Man, I want that card, if only because it looks fun as heck to see all the different ways it activates."

Sabo bobbed his head. "Combined with how powerful it is, the effort spent getting it was definitely worth it."

"But really though, the randomness of the effect is amazing."

"I know! When I'm not dueling lying idiots, it's awesome!"

The two spent a moment is shared appreciation for the metaphorical tree that was the universal force that made some cards so fun to use in duel, before their attention turned back to the metaphorical forest of the duel.

Carter glanced at his cards and the field, remembering what he was doing. "Right, so I activate Bound Wand, which equips to a Spellcaster I control, and gives it 100 Attack points for every Level it has. Arcanite Magician is Level 7, so that's 700 more Attack points going its way!"

The Spellcaster's wand shimmered, and the gem at the tip changed from a yellow sphere to an angular red ruby. (Arcanite Magician ATK: 1400 - 2100)

"Aaaand since you're now wide-open for an attack…" Carter pointed at Sabo. "You're going to get one!"

His monster's staff glowed again, before a bolt of energy shot out and knocked Sabo back again. The Salamander slithered forward to resume his position, hissing slightly as he did so. (Sabo LP: 6000 - 3900)

"I'll set a monster, and that'll be it for my turn."

Sabo pulled a card off of his deck. He glanced at it and and a smirk came across his face. "And now, I show you the true power my deck holds!" He held out a hand, and a Trap card flipped up on his field. "Limit Reverse brings back The Thing in the Crater!"

Carter watched, unimpressed by the fairly cliche proclamation as once again a crater appeared in the ground, filling with both lava and the indistinct figure. (The Thing In The Crater ATK: 1000)

"And now, because I control a Pyro-type monster, I can activate the Spell Growing Fires!" He played the spell card, and the flames around the two duelists grew a little higher, the heat surrounding them increasing just a little.

"Because of this card, in exchange my Normal Summon this turn, I can Special Summon a Pyro-type monster from my hand whose level is one higher than the one I control! And I have just the one to use - King Pyron!"

A wild laugh echoed in the room, and from the wall of flames walked a humanoid figure. Wild streams of fire flowed from the circle into it, as its face solidified somewhat, eyes the blue of intense flame opening up. (King Pyron ATK: 1500)

"And then Growing Fires adds the Attack of the first monster to Pyron!" A column of lava exploded out of the crater, splashing over the fiery monster, who simply threw back his head and laughed even more. (King Pyron ATK: 1500 - 2500)

"Well, that's….not good." Carter commented, while nervously glancing at the floor where the monster was standing. While the flames surrounding them weren't setting things on fire, King Pyron and the flames from his effect looked like they were scorching the floor.

"More than you know, because I activate the spells Solidarity and Supervise!" Sabo played the two cards, and the flames around them spiked a little higher. The lava in The Thing's crater began to bubble a little, while King Pyron's flames spiked dramatically, giving him a cape of fire that swirled around him. (King Pyron ATK: 2500 - 3300)(The Thing in the Crater ATK: 1000 - 1800)

"Wait, then that means…"

"Yes!" Sabo cried. "King Pyron now gains his effect, to deal you 1000 points of damage!"

The flaming monster threw back his hands with a maniacal laugh, an orb of flame the size of a basketball forming between them, and with a throwing gesture launched it at Carter. Carter, not liking the look of the flame, hit the floor, letting the orb impact the ground behind him. The burst of heat from the fireball made his legs and feet feel a bit too warm, but as he stood up again and inspected them, it didn't look like anything bad had happened aside from a bit of scorching. Dusting them off as best he could, he glared at Sabo. (Carter LP: 5000 - 4000)

"Ok, the flames are definitely starting to edge into the dangerous territory here. Is that card magical, somehow?"

Sabo gave him a confused look. "This card is made in the likeness of one of the servants of Imix himself. When played in an environment and by a duelist who both possess a strong connection to the purest element, why wouldn't it evoke the tiniest portion of his power?"

Carter absorbed that explanation, a sinking feeling spreading through his body. This had seemed like a pretty weak Shadow Game, all things considered - his clothing was fire-resistant, and he could take a bit of heat, so there hadn't been a whole lot of danger. However, the increasingly intense flames after that monster had been summoned were worrying, in more ways than one. He didn't want to get seriously burned, and more importantly, they were currently on the third floor of an extremely flammable building, and he didn't want it to burn to the ground while he was inside of it.

Unfortunately, his opponent wasn't giving him time to contemplate.

"And now, King Pyron attacks your annoying Arcanite Magician!" The flaming monster laughed again, summoning a ball of flame in one hand and throwing it.

"Not today! I activate my face-down Shift, letting me redirect your attack to my face-down monster!" The trap on Carter's field flipped up and floated forward, intercepting the fireball and bouncing it into the holographic face-down monster. The card flipped up as it burned, revealing a young wizard in purple robes with a shock of blonde hair.

"And that's my Apprentice Magician, whose second effect that go off now! Since he fell in battle, I can Set a low-level Spellcaster from my deck face-down!"

As the last of Apprentice Magician's card burned into scraps, another Set monster faded into existence where it had been. Sabo scowled, and waved his hand. "I can't attack with my other monster because it was the target of Growing Fire, and the boost to Pyron's attack goes away during the End Phase." (King Pyron ATK: 3300 - 2300)

Carter nodded and prepared to draw, but paused. "Oh, I forgot." He gestured to the long-ignored Arcane Barrier card. "My Barrier gains a Spell Counter when a Spellcaster is destroyed in battle, so that's the first one."

Adding his draw to his hand, he played the other card in his hand. "My final Spell Power Grasp gives my Arcanite Magician one final Spell Counter!" The Magician's staff was now circled by three glowing orbs, pushing its aura of power higher. (Arcanite Magician ATK: 2100 - 3100)

"And now...what should I do..I'm aware of what Supervise can do when it's sent to the Grave, and if I destroy it, then my Magician is going to be to weak to take out Pyron…" He tilted his head to the side, considering the field before him. "And of course, your Supply Wagon and Backfire cards will hurt me and help you no matter what I do."

Sabo glared at him. "Then cease stalling and make your move."

Carter nodded with a grin. "And I will, because I think I'll start off by attacking your Thing in the Crater!" Sabo's eyes popped open, as he glanced at the monster next to him. "Yeah, surprising, isn't it? You were planning to move it to Defense position to destroy it and summon something from your hand. Well, you don't have any hand right now!"

The Spellcaster charged his staff, and fired, somehow blowing up the crater to leave unmarred floor behind. Sabo hissed as he pushed into the burst, holding his ground against the explosion. The kickback also blew flames into Carter, who just closed his eyes as they washed over him. (Sabo LP: 3900 - 2600)(Carter LP: 4000 - 3500)

Supply Wagon glowed as both duelists glanced at it in expectation but after a moment the top card of Sabo's deck simply popped out, the Salamander bemusedly adding it to his hand with the comment of "Not every time I guess….".

Carter looked back at his hand, and then back at the field. "And now, I think I'll destroy your Solidarity Spell with Arcanite Magician's effect!"

The monster turned one of the orbs around its staff into another energy blast, shattering the Continuous Spell on his opponent's field. Sabo, on the other hand, glared furiously at him as Pyron's flames died down a little. (Arcanite Magician ATK: 3100 - 2100)(King Pyron ATK: 2300 - 1500)

"I'll set one card, and then it's your turn."

Sabo growled, and pulled a card off of his deck, glancing at it. When he saw what he had drawn, he smirked. "You've dismantled a lot of my deck's power, but not all of it! I'll start with Meteor of Destruction, and follow with King Pyron's effect!"

The portal behind him glowed ominously for a moment, and disgorged a sphere of fire, which was caught by the laughing Pyro-type monster. His own flames flowed into it, almost doubling it in size, and then tossed it toward Carter.

Carter, for his part, was already diving to the side. His foresight and Shadowchaser-trained reflexes meant that he wasn't hit dead-on by the ball of fire, but it clipped his right side, crisping his shirt a little, and making his arm feel very tender. He hit the ground with a roll, pulling himself to a stop right before the barrier of flame. The wash of flame from the impact site spread out, and he went into a fetal position, letting his jacket take as much of the brunt as he could. (Carter LP: 3500 - 2500 - 1500)

After the heat died out, he carefully stood up, slipping off his jacket to check the damage. Fortunately it seemed to be holding up well enough - he'd definitely need to get a new one since it had started to char in places, but the minor flame-resist enchantment was doing its job. After all, it didn't have any holes in it yet. He pulled his jacket back on and glared at Sabo, opening his mouth to speak.

"Ok, now-"

"And now I use the effect of the monster in my hand!" Sabo interrupted, speaking fast. "I can banish two Pyro-type monsters from my Graveyard to summon Pyrohydra!"

Images of The Thing in the Crater and Solar Flare Dragon's cards appeared before him, before they were consumed by bursts of flame that joined together. Nine streams of fire emerged from the portal, pouring into the heart - and a heart it was, with how it pulsed. The streams expanded around it, forming a squat four-legged body around it. The streamers expanded and solidified, breaking off from the portal and snapping forward. The ends of them not connected to the body changed form, mouths and blue eyes opening up as each formed a head. The creature roared, spurts of flames coming from its mouths and spraying across the room. (Pyrohydra ATK: 0 - 2500)

Carter stared around the room for a minute, before quietly turning to the Salamander. "Ok. First of all, I'm pretty sure you've actually set this building on fire now, which means I now have legitimate reason to try and arrest you, since I'm pretty sure we can get you on some level of arson charges related to reckless usage of a Shadow Game." He ticked off one finger. "Secondly, I'm pretty sure that card is actually magic to some degree, hence the actual fire being used here. So I definitely have a personal bone to pick with you over putting me in actual physical danger. And finally," A second and third finger were ticked off. "Care to explain that card's effects to me?" He put his hands to the side, and glared across the field towards the now cowed Sabo.

The Salamander gulped, and looked around. His gaze traveled around the ceiling and walls of the room (which were definitely on fire now), and back to the pissed-off human, and the charred state of his clothing and crispy hair.

"Well? What are you going to do?" Carter tapped his foot, his angry glare gaining a shade of impatience.

"Umm. Ummm." Sabo glanced at his field, the room, his monsters, the human in front of him, behind him to the portal, and then back at the human. "Pyrohydra attacks your Magician!"

Carter dodged to the side again as the monster unleashed a wave of flame from its mouths, overwhelming the magical barrier that Arcanite Magician had conjured to defend itself, and shattering the monster, leaving its wand to bounce on the floor.

Carter was caught in the wash of flames, one of his pant catching fire. He immediately patted it out with his hands, wincing as he did so. The damage was taking its toll on him, and a lot of his exposed skin was becoming uncomfortably sensitive to the heat. On top of that, the fire on the walls and ceiling was spreading a lot faster than he would have liked, considering he needed to get out of the building after all this. His glare narrowed at Sabo. "You're ignoring me. Also, Bound Wand revives the monster it was equipped to after that monster has been destroyed, and my Defense Draw trap card reduced the damage I took to zero, and let me draw a card."

As he made the draw, the dropped wand on the floor burst into light, which rebuilt itself into Arcanite Magician, this time kneeling on the ground. At the same time, the face-up representation of Defense Draw, having been flipped up in the confusion of the fire faded away. (Arcanite Magician DEF: 1800)

Sabo swore - or made a crackling noise that sounded like a swear, and pointed. "King Pyron attacks your face-down!"

The monster hurled another fireball, hitting Carter's Set monster and incinerating it. As the card flickered away, it raised up to reveal a humanoid monster with a cloth covered face, purple suit, dark red cape, and a carrying satchel in one hand. Carter grinned.

"Magical Undertaker's Flip effect lets me revive a low-level Spellcaster from my graveyard, so thanks for that. Crusader of Endymion fits the bill rather well, don't you think?"

The flickering remnants of the card converged into a glowing portal, out of which emerged the blue-armored Spellcaster, who took up a stance next to the kneeling Magician. (Crusader of Endymion ATK: 1900)

Sabo uttered some fiery swears again, and glanced back at the portal, edging back towards it slightly. "Done." As he did so, Pyrohydra roared again, sending a quick burst of flame across the field and Carter's body. He ignored it as best he could, not being able to suppress a wince from the fire. (Carter LP: 1500 - 1000)

Carter sighed, and drew a card from his deck. "And since you're both ignoring me and not being a good sport and explaining your monster's effect, I have no choice but to bring this to an end."

He waved to the glowing pillar of Arcane Barrier, which with the destruction of the two monsters, had increased the number of circles that comprised it. "Arcane Barrier is actually a terrible name for this card, since it doesn't provide a barrier against anything. Instead, it gathers power when my Spellcasters are destroyed in battle in the form of Spell Counters, and then I can send that and another Spellcaster on my field to draw one card for every Spell Counter it had on it. And since I doubt I'm going to get any more use out of Arcanite Magician, I'll use him to activate it!"

The Spellcaster stood up and stepped into the glowing circles, which brightened as he did so. Spinning around, they began glowing brightly, the glow extending to form an opaque boundary around the pillar. A moment later, the glowing column suddenly contracted into a small orb, which shot into Carter's deck, the causing the top three cards to pop out. Adding them to his hand, he glanced up at Sabo and grinned.

"Oh, this is more like it. I summon Night's End Sorcerer!" As the played the card, a human wrapped in ragged clothes appeared, spinning a scythe-like staff in his hands. (Night's End Sorcerer ATK: 1300)

"And I'm sure you're wondering why I'd summon it, but like Effect Veiler before him, he's a Tuner, so let's tune my Level 4 Crusader with my Level 2 Night's End Sorcerer!"

The Tuner spun its staff around, forming a glowing circle in mid-air. Leaping through the circle, it disappeared as the circle shattered into two, both of the two circles flying to surround Crusader of Endymion. The armored mage raised its hand to the sky as it vanished into four glowing stars.

"Spirits align as the storm of magic is bound by an indomitable will! Be bowed before the gale!" A pillar of light speared through the circles for a moment, leaving a figure standing behind where the circles had been.

"Tempest Magician, Synchro Summoned!" The new monster was a female human with long dark hair. It wore an elaborate blue dress, with a high collar and ornate purple decorations. In one hand it twirled the staff that Night's End Sorcerer had just possessed, smirking as it did so. A Spell Counter orb appeared next to it, floating around its waist. (Tempest Magician ATK: 2200)

Sabo opened his mouth to say something, but Carter bowled on, not letting him get a word in. "And her effect involves Spell Counters as well! When she's Synchro Summoned he gets one, and I can discard cards from my hand to put more on her! So let's go for broke and discard all of them!" He fed the four cards in his hand into the Graveyard slot of his deck, and four more orbs appeared around Tempest Magician's waist.

"And then she can get rid of them to deal you 500 points of damage per Counter! Storm of Legend!" The monster swung its staff around, a whirling pillar of wind gathering in front of it. Sabo tried to say something again, but it was lost as the monster flicked the wind outward. A momentary gale erupted, fanning the flames back around Sabo, and sending him skidding most of the way back to the portal. Glancing at it, he scrambled into a ready position, clearly prepared to bolt at the first opportunity. (Sabo :P: 2600 - 100)

Carter smirked. It was a bit unprofessional of him, but given what the Salamander had done to him, seeing him so scared was a bit cathartic. "And now my Magician will take out the last of your life with Tempest Whirlwind!"

The Spellcaster charged another bolt of wind, and fired it at the suddenly no longer laughing King Pyron. The monster tried to defend, but was snuffed out as the blast of air hit him. The gale continued onward to strike Sabo, sending him skidding past the portal and partially into the wall of fire around them. (Sabo LP: 100 - 0)(Carter WIN)

Carter stepped forward as the holograms faded away, his glare returning full force toward Sabo. "Alright, you're going to come with me and we're going to have a conversation, kapiche?"

The Salamander glanced at him and then moved with a surprising amount of speed, slithered forward and around to dive into the portal. He passed through it with barely a ripple in the wall of flames that it was, and a few seconds later the portal itself winked out of existence, leaving Carter alone in the room. Alone except for the copious quantities of fire, including the circle of fire which had not disappeared when the duel ended.

"Well. At least he's out of my hair. What hair I have left, that is." Taking a moment to take a deep breath, he turned toward the door (which had apparently gotten shut somehow during the duel, on top of being on fire). He took a step back and prepared to jump through the ring of fire, when the door was suddenly kicked down with a bang.

Emerging from it was a short woman with short brown hair, a dripping wet blanket draped on top of her and a fire extinguisher in her hands. She sprayed the area in front of her, damping out the flames by the door. "Come on, idiot! The building's burning down, there's no time to stand around!"

"Mira?" Carter exclaimed in a combination of happiness and surprise, though neither was enough to prevent him from executing his planned leapt through the flames (his lower half feeling overcooked as he did so), continuing the few more steps to the door at a run. "Am I glad to see you!"

She unceremoniously shoved him through the door, sending a spray or two from the extinguisher around the door again for good measure. "We can talk later, move now!"

The left wall of the hallway was on fire, with the rest of it not being very bad yet. Mira had clearly been making liberal use of the extinguisher as she'd moved down it, but it had just been a temporary stopgap. Getting a push on the back, Carter accelerated down the corridor towards the atrium, Mira right behind him.

They got maybe three steps when the flames in front of them spiked upward, a roaring noise coming from a pillar that shot out of the floor. A limb of flame separated from it, swinging at the two of them, and missing only by virtue of Carter's skidding stop leaving him leaning backwards. "What th-"

Another limb detached from the column, and a mouth appeared as a darker patch of fire, with two eyes like glowing coal above it. Mira swore. "What did you do to bring a fire elemental here!?"

Carter screeched in a very unmanly fashion, taking two long steps back. "I don't know! Things really escalated towards the end there, this is not my fault!" He scrambled at his belt, trying to figure out if he had anything that could help.

Mira, in the meantime, hefted the fire extinguisher and let loose at the elemental in front of them. It roared as the spray hit it, falling back. Mira moved forward, driving it back as they advanced down the hallway. It roared in pain and fell back, slipping around the corner of the exit.

Carter and Mira, not questioning its tactics, sprinted forward down the hallway. They skidded right around the corner in the atrium, and immediately discovered where the elemental had gotten to.

"Why are the stairs on fire? They looked like they're made of stone, how are they on fire!?"

Mira glared at Carter. "We can't just leave it around. Got any good ideas?"

Carter glared right back. "Give me a minute to sort through things, and I'll let you know. Just try and keep it off of m-" He shoved her to the side as the elemental's arm suddenly lengthened and spun through where they had been. Stumbling to the side, she braced herself against the wall and resumed spraying the elemental with the extinguisher.

It wasn't as easy a task as it had been, though. Previously the elemental had been limited by the corridor, a fact that was no longer accurate. It shifted around, dodging and ducking to the side as it tried to advance. Mira wildly sprayed the extinguisher fluid, trying to block as many routes of approach as she could, the spray keeping it from advancing. Unfortunately it was tenacious enough that it wasn't retreating either, staying at the top of the stairs (which were burning quite nicely as a side effect of its presence).

"Come on, you've got to be hurt, go away…." she muttered, wincing at the sound of something collapsing back the way they'd come from. "Have you found anything yet?"

Carter popped up next to her, a clay flask in his hand. "Yep, when I say get back, do so. I'm going to need to get close to it."

Mira nodded and sent another aggressive spray at the elemental. "Say when."

He tensed, and hefted the flask in one hand, getting ready to toss it. "...WHEN!"

Mira stopped spraying, hefting the extinguisher towards the elemental as she started taking steps backward. The canister went off the edge of the atrium, flying out of sight towards the ground floor to land with a muffled bang. Carter had launched himself forward, the hand holding onto the flask swinging forward to throw it.

One step, two steps, and he skidded to a stop just shy of the elemental, spinning himself around as he did so. It roared and swung at him, starting to advance now that the extinguisher had ceased. He managed to dodge most of it, his shoulder erupting in pain as it clipped it, burning through his jacket and shirt. Gritting his teeth, he released the flask as his arm finished its swing, the flask flying towards the central part of the elemental. Just as it was sliding off of his fingertips, he focused as hard as he could, and muttered a single word.

"Geyser."

The flask shattered, and water exploded out of where it had been. The elemental screeched in pain, the water evaporating on contact with it, but still doing it a lot of damage. Carter, already trying to dash away, found himself propelled toward where Mira was standing by the force of the water. As he hit the ground and skidded, to his shoulder's extremely vocal complaint at the further abuse it was taking, there was an ominous creaking noise. He glanced up just in time to see the staircase, having already been weakened by the fire elemental's burning, give up in the face of the explosion of water and collapse.

He scrambled to his feet, gasping for breath and joined Mira in glancing over the edge at the ruins of the staircase that had connected the second and third floor, and was now topping with the staircase for the first and second floor. They both stared in silence for a moment, alternately glancing between it and where it had connected to the third floor.

Carter broke the silence. "Well, I think it's dead. I guess that's the good news."

Mira sighed. "And we're stuck on the third floor of a burning building, unless you happen to know where the emergency stairwells are."

Carter pursed his lips, and glanced at the windows as something else collapsed inside the building. "Well…."

She sighed, and looked at him. "What is it?"

He looked her straight in the eyes. "Do you trust me?"

"Always."

"Right." He walked past her towards the large scenic windows. "We're jumping out the window."

Mira sighed, and followed him. "And how do you propose to break through the window? Got a gadget for that?"

Carter shook his head. "Nope. We're going to have to run and break through it."

She turned to stare at him. "And the reason we can't just jump into the atrium is…?"

"I'm pretty sure the main doors were above where all the fire is - it might have collapsed on there, and I'd rather not spend time running around trying to find another exit." He paused. "And you want to jump out of the window action movie style, don't lie."

Mira resolutely ignored his accurate guess, and glanced over the pane. "So how do you propose we do this?"

Carter apprised the glass, tapping on it. "Well, first we should see if we can break it without charging, so we don't keep bouncing off of it." Taking a step back, he went back on one foot and snapped out a kick against the window, hitting it solidly, but not doing anything.

Mira took a step forward, and kicked at the spot, sending a few spidery cracks across the surface. Carter rolled his eyes and kicked the spot again, sending a few more cracks across it. Another kick from Mira, and the window shattered into tiny fragments of glass, cascading down and outside the building.

The two Shadowchasers glanced out the now open pane, looking down. Fortunately for them, the earth of what would be a scenic tree bed stood there. Carter glanced back into the building. The fire was spreading, but it hadn't quite made it to them yet, so they were doing alright for time. He turned back to Mira. "Alright. You're going to need to be hanging onto me for thi-"

Mira had wasted no time and leaped onto him, wrapping her legs around his stomach as she shifted to ride him piggyback. "This good?"

"Yes, you overenthusiastic cuddler you, it's fine." Ignoring her whacking his head, he grabbed a small token made out of several colorful feathers, and gripped it in his hand. "Here goes….!"

He took a step back and dashed at the open space where the window had been, leaping out into space. The reached the apex of the jump a few feet away from the window, and began to fall.

The falling was happening a lot more leisurely than normal, though. They were still drifting outward from the building, but despite the fact that they should have it the ground by now, they'd only gone down about half a floor. Mira poked Carter's head. "Feather Fall Token?"

He nodded, eyes fixed to the ground. "Yep. Doesn't do as much since it's over its weight capacity-" he ignored her whacking him on the head again "-capacity of in terms of people, geez, you know the spell's only designed to slow a single person's fall!"

They landed with a heavy thump, Carter wincing as his legs buckled from the impact. Mira hopped off his back and helped him up, being careful to avoid his shoulder.

"Shall we get out of here?"

He nodded. "Gods yes."

**OOOOO**

The building was by this point extremely on fire. Multiple fire engines surrounded the entire block, with firefighters spraying water into building to try and get the fire under control. Fortunately for the rest of the block, it hadn't spread past the first building, and nobody had been working on it when the fire started, so it looked like there wasn't going to be any serious damage.

Several blocks away, Mira and Carter relaxed against their D-Wheels, Mira wrapping up Carter's shoulder as best she could. Carter was trying his best to ignore the pain, and contemplatively watching the burning building.

"...so where did you get that wet blanket from anyway?"

Mira snorted. "That was my Duel Runner covering. You owe me a new one now."

He rolled his eyes and winced again as she tightened the bandage. "But where did the water come from? I doubt you have any Decanters of Endless Water that I don't know about."

Finishing the bandaging, Mira stood up and stretched. "Was that what you threw at the elemental?"

"Well, sort-of. You remember when I was trying to make them?"

Mira leaned against her bike with a laugh. "You mean before Lucy banned you from trying to craft things that could wreck the house?"

Carter laughed as well. "In my defense, that bit needed remodeling, and it looks a lot better now than it did. Nicer colors, too."

"That's not a defense for actually doing it, you know."

He waved a hand in her direction. "Shush you. But yeah, the one that failed was the second one I made, and that was the first one."

She knocked his hand away with a grin. "It wasn't exactly an endless decanter there."

He shrugged. "Hey, you know I'm not that great at it, and it sounds a lot better than Decanter of Sixty-Seven Gallons Give or Take a Few Pints."

Mira nodded her head in agreement. "This is true."

There was a lull in the conversation, before Carter broke it. "Did you have anything planned with Chet? I know he's pretty understanding with things coming up, but I'd still rather not take you away from being nauseatingly adorable with him."

Mira flushed a little before shaking her head. "Nope, he's busy dealing with the crowds for the Team Dueling tourney for the next couple of days. Now, next week…."

Carter gave her a wink. "Vigorous celebrations of your anniversary, huh?"

She responded with a rude gesture, and he laughed. "Alright, alright, I'll stop. Also, you still haven't told me where you go the water from."

"Spigot on the outside of the building."

"Really?" She nodded. "Huh. Wouldn't have expected it to be hooked up already. I guess you dropped it somewhere in the building."

She nodded again, before crossing her arms to glare at him. "And I wouldn't have expected you to take something like this and somehow get involved in a Shadow Game!"

He sighed. "I told you, I didn't do anything to instigate that! It was all that Salamander escalating things!"

She glared at him, a little more softly than before. "Yeah, but you're lucky that I was around to help you out, or you'd have been toast, you know that?"

He nodded, and stood, opening his arms. "Yeah. Thanks for that."

She stood up as well, and they hugged. A few seconds of embrace later, they separated to lean on their bikes. Mira glanced back at the burning building, and then at her watch. "We should probably get back home and get you some actual medical treatment for that shoulder of yours. You up for driving?"

Carter nodded and mounted on his Duel Runner. "I should be. Just can't go too fast, and be careful with turning and the like."

She nodded and mounted her Runner. The two engines started in concert, and the two of them drove off into the city, leaving the burning building behind them.

**OOOOO**

_**Custom Cards: **_

**Growing Flames / Spell, Normal**

**Effect:** If you control a Pyro-type monster, you can Special Summon a Pyro-Type monster from your hand that is one level higher than the monster you control. It gains Attack equal to the Attack of the monster you control until the End Phase, and it is the only monster you can attack with this turn. You cannot Normal Summon or Set the turn you activate this card. You can only activate the effect of "Growing Flames" once per turn.

**Image: **An Inferno blazing brightly, while behind it King Pyron stands with his arms crossed.

**OOO**

**Pyrohydra / Level 9 / FIRE / Pyro/Effect / ?/?**

**Effect:** This card cannot be Normal Summoned/Set. This card can only be Special Summoned by its own effect, and cannot be Special Summoned by other ways. You can Special Summon this card from your hand by banishing two Pyro-Type monsters whose total levels equal 8 from your Graveyard. This card's ATK and DEF are equal to the sum of the ATK and DEF of the monsters you banished to summon this card. In addition, select one monster banished to summon this card; this monster gains that card's effects.

**Image:** A massive beast of flame, with nine heads on long sinuous necks.

**OOOOO**

_Next Time, on Shadowchasers: Normality: _

_Fusion Sage_


End file.
